Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering - GPA

[YoshiMoshi]

I'm pursuing a MSEE, I was wondering how much GPA matters, if it matters at all? Please be honest.

I'm questioning it, because my credits towards my degree do not expire until they are six years old. Should I use the time from which I have enough credits to graduate and earn my degree to the time in which my credits start to expire (take the full six years) to retake courses that I have already taken, but did not get in A in, to try and get an A to raise my GPA closer to 4.0?

I have heard that it is generally speaking a rule of thumb to not include your GPA on your resume if you have a masters, even if it's good. Because people generally speaking don't care, and just want to know that you have the degree. Sort of like how you don't include your High School resume or GPA once you are a junior in your undergraduate, even if it was a good high school GPA or you graduated the top of your class, no one really cares what you did when you were 18 years old, if you got an undergraduate degree, than it's implied you wen to and graduate high school, and that is all that matters that you graduated high school.

I know for undergraduate, there's the generally speaking rule of thumb that you should at least have a 3.0, because of the few times that you are asked for your GPA if you are pursuing a job after graduating, or pursing a masters, this is the minimum GPA. However from my experience in applying to graduate school, it's just part of the resume to graduate school. And honest to god, someone will always take your money from you and let you into the program. Someone is always willing to take your money from you! I would imagine admitting "low GPA" students when there's not enough applications or "high risk" is just part of the process to, because it's profitable to the university and a quick buck. I mean you may not get into the school of your choice, but someone will take your money from you and let you into the graduate school. I would imagine it's sort of like loan companies that loan high amounts of money to high risk high school students going to college, who have little to no credit, and little to no work experience, or really anything at all that suggests they can pay off their college loans. Perhaps college is the same thing, you have to admit high risk students sometimes, because money is money after all, it it's just part of the process. I've also heard that it is customary, once your out of school for a long time to move your education to the bottom of the resume and make it take up as little space as possible, to leave more space for work experience because that's more important.

Anyways, so what's the "minimum GPA" if I were to pursue a phd? I highly doubt I could even complete it because I would have to be working full time (outside of school). But I don't want to close myself off from that opportunity later down the road if I ever chose to do so. I don't want to be punished the rest of my life though for what I did in school when I was in my early 20s.

As far as jobs go, from my experience, GPA is just to help you get the interview. What determines if you get the job is the interview, and performance during the interview.

So please let me know, should I retake a lot of graduate courses to get a high GPA? What is the "minimum GPA" if I were to ever pursue a phd (which is unlikely). Do you really not include your GPA on your resume (even if it's good) once you get a masters degree?

 

[berkeman]

I have heard that it is generally speaking a rule of thumb to not include your GPA on your resume if you have a masters, even if it's good. Because people generally speaking don't care, and just want to know that you have the degree.

Is that just for your PhD academic applications? It certainly is not true in Industry. I expect to see GPA on the resumes that I get, unless the candidate is interviewing for an experienced position and has lots of work experience. Your school GPA won't matter much after you have 10+ years of high-quality Industry experience. If the GPA is outstanding, It's good to put it on your resume forever, IMO.

As far as jobs go, from my experience, GPA is just to help you get the interview. What determines if you get the job is the interview, and performance during the interview.

Well, sort of. For new graduates from university, as long as the GPA is reasonable (say 3.5+), that's enough to get you an interview. (Note that I work in R&D, so the entry level GPA for candidates is probably a bit higher than in general Industry positions.) Much more important is any applicable experience you have, including summer technical jobs, internships, student research, and personal projects in the subject area.

I will be asking you fairly hard technical interview questions in your areas of expertise and experience. If you don't have good confidence in those areas, maybe spend your extra study time brushing up on that, and try to find projects and research to work on that you can bring up in the interviews. I prefer for candidates to bring their previous projects/work examples with them so we can discuss them in the interview. That way I can expect them to have good in-depth knowledge of their work, as opposed to the technical questions that I usually ask. I expect candidates to be comfortable with in-depth technical questions about projects that they have worked on.

Hope that helps. Are you asking mainly about Industry or Academia for your next stage?

 

[YoshiMoshi]

I'm trying to consider both, academic and career. So as long as I have a 3.5 average GPA I should be good?

Basically I'm trying to determine at what point does it not make financial sense to retake courses to get a high GPA. Simply put, there is a zero/negative return on investment on retaking the class.

Each of my courses costs about $2,700. There is some creep in that price to assuming it goes up about $100 or so a year.

School is also 44.1 miles one way from my home, so 88.2 miles round trip. My classes normally meet twice a week. So that's 176.4 miles a week. 15 weeks a semester leaves me at 2,646 miles a semester. I get about 30 miles a gallon so that's approximately 88 gallons of gas per semester.

Ignoring wear and tear, assuming $3 a gallon in gas, I would be looking at approximately $2964 to retake one course for a chance to get a higher grade.

At what point does it not make sense to spend $2964 to retake a course to get a high GPA? When there is no return on investment, or potential return on investment.

Example if I graduate with a 3.6, 3.7, 3.8... does it make sense to spend $2964 for the chance to retake a course? So I got a B- in a course and retook it, assuming I got an A the second time.