If OSU is setup like my school was your first two years are general education and the next two years are upper division where you take all of your classes for your chosen degree. So, assuming it's higher, only count your upper division GPA and list that on your application forms. It will be easier to raise this GPA because their are less total credit hours. Of course, you should probably still list both GPAs on your resume. My university only looked at the upper division to determine who graduated with honors so in my opinion this is a legit thing to do. Both of my GPAs were over 3.0, but when I was looking for a job I felt I could use all of the help I could get to make someone pick out my resume and give me a call.Killer-Kris said:
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Killer-Kris
Regular
3dcgi said:
It sounds like we're setup similar but with some minor differences. Our first two years are considered "pre-school" where individuals who don't have AP/transfer credits take the generic courses and those who do, which happens to be most everyone, get to dig right into their subject matter. I know that EE, CpE, and CS all get to do this, we get pretty heavily into electrical fundamentals, digital logic design, or data structures long before they get into "pro-school" and the upper division courses.
Of course many students do something similar to what you mentioned, but instead of being upper division course work we list GPA in our major. Now I managed to learn this after talking to different people at those companies. So I suppose I'll have better luck next year armed with this knowledge.
Killer-Kris said:
The 1..7 scale I was refering to is (or was) used in Australia, at least when I graduated. I did a 3yr B.Sc - Bachelor of Science. (For those in the US, a B.S. is a Bachelor of Surgery). Honours was then done as an extra, post-graduate year and, IIRC, you had to get a GPA of about 6~7 to get a 1st.
The system differed from faculty to faculty, however. Engineering, for example, was a four year course with honours awarded according to your final gradings.
Grade Point Average.
Basically it's a weighted sum of your subject results, where the weight is the credit point rating of the subject. A 10 credit point subject (i.e supposedly 10hrs of work per week (lectures+personal study+assignments) ) is thus worth more than an 8 credit point subject.
i.e. GPA = Sum(CP * Subject. Score) / Sum(CP)
Basically it's a weighted sum of your subject results, where the weight is the credit point rating of the subject. A 10 credit point subject (i.e supposedly 10hrs of work per week (lectures+personal study+assignments) ) is thus worth more than an 8 credit point subject.
i.e. GPA = Sum(CP * Subject. Score) / Sum(CP)
How long have companies been doing GPA requirements for?Most unis here take an average % grade over the last two years of a three year course, or last three of a four year course.
~68+ is a first class degree (should be 70% but they usually round you up if you're close).
~58+ 2:1 (second class: first division)
~48+ 2:2 (second class: second division)
40+ 3rd
<40 fail.
All decent, non-medical degrees have honours accreditation these days (due to their research content). I think it's usually the case that if you pass at the 1st or 2nd class level, it's a 1st/2:1/2:2 "with honours". Non-honours degrees are marked pass<merit<distinction.
~68+ is a first class degree (should be 70% but they usually round you up if you're close).
~58+ 2:1 (second class: first division)
~48+ 2:2 (second class: second division)
40+ 3rd
<40 fail.
All decent, non-medical degrees have honours accreditation these days (due to their research content). I think it's usually the case that if you pass at the 1st or 2nd class level, it's a 1st/2:1/2:2 "with honours". Non-honours degrees are marked pass<merit<distinction.
asicnewbie
Newcomer
Killer-Kris said:
At the undergrad school I attended (University of California Irvine), the 'pre-school' coursework were called 'GE' (general education) requirements. For a given undergraduate 'major' (field of study) in a department, the GEs are same for all the students. But of course, they vary from department to department, and from school to school. When I studied at UCI, the engineering department had 2 distinct majors: 'electrical engineering' and 'computer engineering.' CompE focused on computer-architecture issues, whereas EE was more broad (focusing more on devices, circuits, and waves.)
Unfortunately, the curiculuum (coursework requirements and electives) for EE/CpE majors varies by university -- everyone seems to have their own interpretation/implementation of these degrees. For the employer, comparing applicants from different universities becomes an annoying guessing game, especially since schools change their degree-programs to 'keep up' with the demands of industry.
Of the resumes I've reviewed, most candidates simply list their overall GPA. Some candidates thoughtfully include a 'major GPA.' Surprisingly, our company's interviewing experience has shown low correlation between GPA and vocational knowledge. We've had < 3.0 GPA applicants do quite well during our technical interviews, and > 3.5 GPA applicants.
On the other hand, our interview questions tend to focus on 'real-world' design issues -- stuff that is not directly covered in a university curicuulum. I suspect if our interviews focused more on 'textbook' style questions, the applicant's interview performance would more strongly correlate to GPA.
In fairness, I work for a small ( < 10 person ) company that no one has ever heard of. That fact, in itself, dictates the caliber of talent we see (i.e., if Intel/AMD/HP see 'the best', my company sees 'the rest.')
Sadly, the 'desirable work destinations' (most popular companies to work for) screen resumes by GPA. They probably get far too many resumes to play detective on each one, and GPA rankings are a quick and dirty way (but imperfect and arguably unfair), to cull candidates for the phone-screening process.
At my old school (UCI), the best chances for job-placement (for the graduating senior) was through the on-campus interview program. Most US universities have some sort of interview-program with local companies. This matches applicants and employers much better than a generic 'submit your resume to our box/webform/fax.' The 2nd best chance was the career fair (but these are only as good as the school's reputation.) Many of the company booths are staffed by the technical managers -- if you can strike up a conversation, demonstrate your interest, and show some basic knowledge, you have a good chance of at least getting a phone-interview (even if your GPA is borderline compared to other applicants.)
When times were good, companies were hiring left and right. In the Irvine area, UCI is the closest campus with a 4-year engineering degree, (UCLA, USC, Harvey Mudd, Caltech, and UCSD being better choices in terms of academic caliber.) For summer internships and part-time work, this gave UCI a 'geographical edge' over the better Southern California universities. But as the job-market shrunk over the past few years, most of the companies cutback participation in college interview programs. If you were a SJSU (San Jose State University) in Silicon Valley, competing against UC Berkeley and Stanford University grads, well you were pretty much scr*wed for all the 'good' (non busy-work, dead-end) entry-level jobs.
Heh, apologies for this rambling *rant*
Oh that was truly awfulET said:
Well it's (or at least it was) 1 and 7 in Australia. The scoring was also non-linear, i.e. going from a 6 to a 7 is meant to be much harder than going from a 5 to a 6.
Our tertiary entrance scores (awarded at the end of high school) were in decimal (well they were % scores to the nearest .5%)
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