Hi:

I'm considering attending Mac Engineering next year.

I'm just wondering what the drop-out/kicked out rate is for
engineering at Mac. I've heard it's as high as 50%, but
I find that hard to believe. Can't find hard statistics
on this anywhere (not for Mac or any other university)....
guess the universities don't want people to know
the "dirty truth".

I'd like hard figures, not "I heard that"...

If you don't know yourself, than if you could
point me in the right direction, that would be great.

I don't know what the drop out rate is, but I can tell you that only about 75% of the first year engineering class wrote the second chemistry midterm (our prof showed us the statistics) which was in mid-November.

well from what ive seen there has been a lot of people that have dropped out of or failed math and chem in term 1 and i know some people that failed other courses. i don't know any hard facts but every upper year student i have talked to has said that there is a high drop out / fail rate which is not much to go on. one fact i do know is that you need to maintain a 60% average to continue to level II engineering. either way im sure its not to different from school to school.

Consider the Math drop outs. We were well over 100 (maybe closer to 200) after or perhaps before the midterm test. The engineering offices were busy for quite some time.

So considering we have at the most 1000 students - a slight exaggeration - at the bare minimum, at least 20% didn't do so well. I wouldn't say "dropped out", as from what I hear, many decided to take summer school. But lets be honest, it's gonna be even tougher to survive when you're jam-packing a course over your break, on top of which, we have 1ZZ5, which builds off last term.

In short, it'll probably be near to it. Maybe not 1:1 drop out, but around 40%?
Engineering is tough, in that the work load just builds up. Test every other week (I'm still dreading the 3 test + Midterm + Exam in 1zz5 ;__; ), Labs, Tutorials and crazy schedules that involve a good chunk of your week just being in school.

I recommend trying to get into engineering, because it's interesting and definitely worth it in the end at least... just don't get too acquainted with alcohol after you get in, because drinking away your sorrows will just leave you with a pounding headache the next morning hahaha

You cannot base your decision on the "drop out" rate because it is not a true representation of the difficulty of the program.

Many people decide that engineering is not for them or that they are more interested in other subjects and transfer to other faculties and not all do it because engineering was too tough.

[[[I heard]]] from a 4th year student here that 60% of eng 1 people graduated in the same program. I don't think any university here will publish stats about drop out rates so most of the figures u hear here is rumor.

drop out rate is 50% my friend either due to people failing/they not liking engineering/transferring etc.. if you are gonna come here, make sure you work hard every day and don't slack off/get behind in any material... its very easy to fall behind procrastinating, lan gaming, partying and clubbing and whatnot but i guess that depends on the people you are around with. of course have fun but remember the engineering monster you are gonna try to slay next year(who is gonna revive and get biggger and crazier 2nd year, 3rd year and 4th year.

I was also nervous about this before coming to Mac, it's completely normal.

As long as you keep up (time management is key) and do the work, you'll be fine. And if you find yourself really confused, then engineering may not be for you.

Only one of my fellow engineers that I knew dropped out. He only did so because he didn't do the work.

There's no reason to worry about rates, just like everyone is saying

If you really want to be in that percent that moves on, you'll work for it (even if you have to re take some courses/ a year - a lot of people do that)

Make every effort to make sure you end up doing WHAT YOU ENJOY

thats the most important part

Although it can be said that Engineering (at any university) is a challenging first year, the 'drop out' rate is not 50%. The misconception that universities are trying to 'weed out' students from first year to second year is very misguided. Obviously, universities want to keep the students they have and see them graduate after 4 or 5 years in a program (any program). Having empty seats in a classroom after first year is not in the best interests of the students nor the university.
Every university is mandated to provide graduation rates for all of its programs (along with other key performance indicators). You can find McMaster's at the following web link.
You will notice that 77.2% of Engineering students graduate from their program. Please keep in mind that this does not mean that the remainder 'dropped out'. They may have changed universities, changed programs, or taken longer than the 4-5 years to complete the program.

I hope this helps to clarify misconceptions.


http://www.mcmaster.ca/opr/html/opr/...OSAP_2006.html

I'd also like to give some general advice here:

Do what you like to do. It's better to spend 8, even 20 years working towards something you love, than to spend 4 years and end up doing something you hate for the rest of your life.

No matter how long it takes, just shoot for what you want, and don't let anything stop you from achieving that. There's a difference between a job and a living - a job is just something you do and get paid for, while a living is something you'd do for free, and you get paid as a bonus.

I JUST WANT TO BUILD ROBOTS OMGWTFBBQ