Schools Do I have a good chance of getting into graduate school?

[Sentience]

I am currently enrolled in a community college and I am a chemical engineering major. I plan on transferring to the local uni next fall (University of Utah if you are wondering). I would like to go to graduate school some day or at least keep the option open. The minimum gpa for the grad program here is a 3.0. I know that they mostly look at the last year or so of upper division courses and not so much your early freshman stuff.

My questions are :

1) Right now my gpa is about a 3.5 in my calc, physics, chem, and first engineering courses. I know the upper division courses are going to be more difficult. In your experience, do I stand a good chance of maintaining that 3.0 in upper division classes?

2) Are there ways of obtaining a syllabus for a uni course even if I'm not enrolled? I ask because for certain courses (such as heat transfer/mass separation) I would like to know which topics will be covered and which text the class will use. This way I can get a head start before the class starts and staying a little ahead of the instructor. I figure this is my best chance of getting good grades.

 

[QuarkCharmer]

#1.) I don't know how it works for engineering, but for physics, I am told that a GPA of 3.5 or so should be the minimum in order to get a paid ride through grad school. I am sure that you can get accepted somewhere with the minimum of 3.0, but certainly you don't want to pay for it right?

#2.)
Before I was enrolled at my current university, I was at a community college and I wanted the syllabi for future courses. I simply used google to filter sited with yourschool.edu and searched for the course title. You can usually find the syllabus that way. In one case I simply called registration, got the name/email of a professor teaching a course I was interested in, and sent them an email. Getting ahead is always good.

 

[Sentience]

I'm going to strive for the highest gpa I can get. But I'm working part time as an intern (good experience) and it's going to be REALLY hard to get a 3.5 gpa I think. In order to do that I would need to not work at all but I don't know if I want to give up this internship :(