Re:It has ALWAYS sucked... (Score 1)

This is absolutely correct. I see people saying that the grade inflation doesn't matter because you only compete against other engineering students. That isn't the case as I've experienced it. Often the HR department isn't staffed with engineering majors and they don't often even believe there is a difference in the grade inflation. I graduated from an engineering focused school known to be hard with low GPA's. I've been working now in industry for almost four years. I have many classmates that fell below the 3.0 mark (I graduated with exactaly a 3.0) and just couldn't get interviews at all. However, I ran across many engineering students with 3.5+ from a liberal arts school, where all engineering majors were in one building. These students were not any smarter than those I knew from school, but they got into the interview because of the 3.0 GPA. Where I currently work I would not have gotten the interview w/o the 3.0 it's our policy. I'm very glad I made the grade, but I wouldn't be inclined to encourage a child of mine to do it again. Industry doesn't recognize the difference in a GPA from different schools. Because of that, it's not worth going to one of these larger impersonal schools often with professors that don't care and who take pride in making students not understand. If you're interested in engineering do not fall into the trap of thinking the name of the school matters. Go find a friendly engineering school, with professors that care and aren't just trying to fail as many people as they can. You'll find it easier to grasp the concepts and gain the building blocks to join this great profession. Most of those big name schools have professors who don't want most of the students to understand. It's really not THAT hard, unfortunately most engineers (not just the teachers) want to keep things sounding as complicated as possible because they want to feel smarter than you. P.S. Yes I do enjoy my job, no I won't be sending any children to my alma mater. I think it's better education per $ elsewhere.