Grades: College of Engineering

Tuesday, December 1, 2009 - 12:33 AM

The College of Engineering offers the following undergraduate degrees: chemical engineering, materials science and engineering, civil engineering, environmental engineering, computer science, computer and information engineering, electrical engineering, engineering physics and mechanical engineering.

Click here to read the entire special report on grades.

College of Engineering Dean Emmanuel Maragakis said he wasn’t surprised by the college’s grade distribution, which showed a lower number of A’s given than the university average.
Last spring, 39 percent of the grades were A’s and 30 percent were B’s.

“Are students more diligent today than they were years ago?” asked Charles Corenella, a professor of chemical and materials engineering. “That seems unlikely, but it’s certainly true, at least in engineering, that students are more capable than they were way back.”

Although students may be more capable today, the rigor of the courses is the same.

“The curriculum today is no less rigorous than it was years ago, but there’s certainly pressure on faculty to issue higher grades than there was,” he said.

Mark Talavera, a 21-year-old civil engineering major, said courses in the college are average.

“The classes that I’ve taken have been pretty balanced,” Talavera said. “It’s pretty abstract. Professors expect you to do our own research and they don’t tell you much about the project. You are forced to do your own thinking.”

“You get out of it what you put into it,” he said.

Melinda Chemor can be reached at news@nevadasagebrush.com.