Alright, I think it's time for a comment from someone who's a) relatively competent, b) knows the details of the program, and c) has actually read through the posts here.

There's no way to give you an accurate number as to the minimum CA you'll need to get into any one particular discipline. Yes, you can sort of extrapolate from the previous years to get an idea, but there's always a chance that will change, either for better or for worse.

The CA you'll need is determined by the discipline's popularity. It's not like the department heads all get together and arbitrarily assign minimum mark requirements to their discipline.

Each discipline has a semi-fixed number of students they'll take. Each department then looks at all the students who picked those as their first choice and lets them in, then they keep taking students with lower and lower averages until they're at capacity.

As for the question of why you need such a relatively low average for the programs, keep in mind that we a) take at least two more courses per year, and b) our courses are generally harder, so it's only natural they expect a little less from us mark-wise.

I'm also angry because we pay more per unit than everyone else to take the same courses, but that's unrelated.

Lawley: Dun generalize please. :( Yeah, I know I have a lot of idiots in my faculty, but we're not all that bad. I also don't chirp Commerce. Well, not that much, anyway.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

Eh..

I have a few friends in engineering second year...
One of them gets high every day, and he has an 11.7 GPA.
One of them comes to school once every few weeks and has a low 11 GPA.
One of them plays games all day and has an 11.9 GPA.

Doesn't seem impossibly hard to get a 5.0...

Smart people tend to converge. Also, 3/1000 is a relatively small sample size. Want me to tell you about all the dropouts?

Not that I'm disagreeing; 5.0 is manageable. I'm terribly lazy and barely ever study for tests and I'm managing a low 5. To be honest though, it's only that high 'cause the Commerce courses bring up my average like mad.

Originally Posted by Boolean

lol i hope you aren't referring to me since i've kept my cool during this thread.

No, lol.
I'm talking like 2 years worth of chirping. Now tables have been reversed and babies are crying about it. Shit sucks, don't it.

http://www.gifbin.com/982918

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

I'm wondering, how come the engineering marks required for second year programs are so (relatively) low?

Taking a look at the undergraduate calendar, engineers take 7 courses per term (this is including full year courses).

The courses (if I remember correctly, I'm not a firstie anymore) are:

3 maths
1 programming/computer algorithm
1 chem
2 phys
1 engineering design/professional engineer
1 materials sci
2 comp. electives
1 CAD

When I was a first I also took an additional coop course (not hard but a pain in the ass). That is 13 courses a year.

It is by no means an easy course load.

Changes yearly. Id say about a 7 or 8 is decent enough

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

Eh..

I have a few friends in engineering second year...
One of them gets high every day, and he has an 11.7 GPA.
One of them comes to school once every few weeks and has a low 11 GPA.
One of them plays games all day and has an 11.9 GPA.

Doesn't seem impossibly hard to get a 5.0...

Your posts always make me feel like I'm really stupid.

:(

Boolean: I do agree with you. Insignificant is a little hyperbolic, it obviously has some significance. What I am referring to is the underlying essence of the typical college student. It is that an institution such as McMaster is here for them to get their degree, then go get a job in that field.

I am a strong believer in life-long education, so no, someone may not be able to get a job at NASA after completing a fine arts degree, there is absolutely NOTHING against them being able to attain the skills to end up working on the Mars Rover later on.

I can sum up my feelings in one superb quote, by Paul Graham in his essay "love" :

"For example, if you asked random people on the street if they'd like to be able to draw like Leonardo, you'd find most would say something like 'Oh, I can't draw.' This is more of a statement of intention than fact; it means, I'm not going to try. Because the fact is, if you took a random person off the street and somehow got them to work as hard as they possibly could at drawing for the next twenty years, they'd get surprisingly far. But it would require a great moral effort; it would mean staring failure in the eye every day for years. And so to protect themselves people say 'I can't.'"

Originally Posted by Juve

Anyone can do engineering ..if you are willing to become a nerd and not have a life and study 24/7 , this is the truth

Study 24/7? lawd. Nice misconception.

Originally Posted by dmzz

To exemplify my earlier post, (because I re-read a comment about "trying to do partial differentiation courses"), look at Pat De Luca.

He is the Systems Administrator for the Center for Spatial Analysis, here at McMaster. In addition, he is also a lecturer. He has taught cross listed upper-year engineering courses, as well as many in the technical side of geography (GIS). This guy knows more math than the average engineer upon graduation. He taught a course in which engineers mocked him, because he has an M.A. in Spatial Analysis (GIS), and was going to teach them something in the realm of differentiations. (Keep in mind this was an upper-year class). One particular *******, said, "I don't think you actually know any of this stuff. You are bullshitting it." Pat, taking particular offence to this, said "okay, let's see." He went into Phd level mathematics and application towards the course, and after a two hour lecture said, "by the way, this is now testable, and you can thank your friend with the big mouth for it." The class average was failing on the test because of it.

tl;dr Don't judge a book by its cover.

Snot-nosed brats like that deserve a swift boot in the ass. The ones trying to prove something--prove that they're "smarter" than a person who is smarter than they ever will be-- need to get a life.


With regards to the CA garbage, the "6.0" or whatever is at the lowest end of the spectrum. That's the GPA of the last person to get in, if I'm not mistaken.

Originally Posted by Entropy

Smart people tend to converge. Also, 3/1000 is a relatively small sample size. Want me to tell you about all the dropouts?

Not that I'm disagreeing; 5.0 is manageable. I'm terribly lazy and barely ever study for tests and I'm managing a low 5. To be honest though, it's only that high 'cause the Commerce courses bring up my average like mad.

Who says they know/hang out with each other?

As an aside, I agree that Engineering is the most difficult program because of its insane workload. And 3/1000 is nothing, yes, but all I'm saying is that most of my friends in engineering are all getting 10s-12s in their classes and unlike what Juve says, they don't study 24/7 - they go out and party, and have social lives. We consider each other equal in academia and considering I'm not super bright or anything, it seems like it's not impossible to do as well in engineering as one can in any other faculty.

I just don't think engineers have an excuse to just barely pass, is all. Just because its harder than other faculties doesn't mean getting a 55% average is suddenly perfectly fine, in my opinion.

And to compare, for all the people attempting to get into med school, their courses might not be as 'hard' as engineering (and even that's debatable, chemical engineers don't even take organic chemistry until third or fourth year, and we have to take it second). Science students definitely don't have to take more than 5 courses a term, BUT the kicker is that they all have to get ridiculously high marks. I don't know about you, but I feel like getting 60s in 6 or 7 courses is easier than getting 90s in 5 almost as difficult courses.

Originally Posted by crazyfree

Your posts always make me feel like I'm really stupid.

:(

Lol, my posts? How! I rarely mention my friends, but yeah, some of them are beasts.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

Lol, my posts? How! I rarely mention my friends, but yeah, some of them are beasts.

Maybe I'm confusing you with someone, but I feel like whenever marks come up you always talk about how easy it is to get 12's.

Though I agree..trying to get 12's in all 5 courses=harder then getting 60's in 6. Though I never knew that engineers took more courses...sounds intense 0_0

Ah, then you likely don't have me confused with someone else >_>

To be fair, I only mention that when people talk about how hard it is to get 12s, as if it's so unheard of and impossible to attain.

Originally Posted by crazyfree

Maybe I'm confusing you with someone, but I feel like whenever marks come up you always talk about how easy it is to get 12's.

Though I agree..trying to get 12's in all 5 courses=harder then getting 60's in 6. Though I never knew that engineers took more courses...sounds intense 0_0

1st year blows. 2nd year--at least for Electrical-- is a joke. First term I had 4 courses and the only "hard" one was because programming isn't my strong point. And I guess math blew because of the MATLAB assignments, but even then, if you know somebody capable of it, you can most likely leech the work. 2nd term sucked more, but it was more because of a never-ending slew of assignments as opposed to classes being hard. Well, except for another weak point.

3rd year isn't too bad so far. Maybe it's because I'm cruising with a commerce & 2 eng management courses on top of 3 engineering ones. I would only have 4 courses this term if I were straight electrical as opposed to the 6 I have right now.

tl;dr engineering is easy

Engineers are so weird

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

Ah, then you likely don't have me confused with someone else >_>

To be fair, I only mention that when people talk about how hard it is to get 12s, as if it's so unheard of and impossible to attain.

Ah ok, fair enough. I always got the impression you were insinuating that we should all be getting 12's, or that it was easy. I was like "whoa there 4.0, we're not all geniuses"
I agree, not impossible, but dam if I don't have to work my ass off for every mark I get (no matter what mark I end up with)

Lol, it's not that I get all 12s or even close, it's just that when I don't I know it's not because of 'the prof' or the 'program' or the 'course' it was just me.

EDIT: I also come off like a jackass, so yeah. >_>