GPA Issue Forum

[09042014]

Pol S is often a decent choice if you want to go into government related work. I mean, sure, you often need to be at a good enough school to get these jobs, but top state schools etc. can usually place its Pol S students. And often people self-select into Pol S because they are planning on moving on to a cognate professional degree, such as a MPP or a law degree. If you know it in advance, it isn't a bad degree (as long as you are taking the better classes).

But yes, we all should be engineers.

Place into starbucks maybe?

I graduated at one of the better state schools a couple years back, but not one of the few publics where the name will carry you. All of my colleagues who actually attended and participated in my program have gone on to do real work--consulting and government work mostly (political consulting, State Department, CIA, ...). About half went on to do additional degrees (law, public policy, M.A.s or Ph.D.s), which was their intention when they began their studies. If you know what you are doing there are careers that can be had through a Pol S degree, even for those outside of the top 5 schools.

Also, if they decide they want to go to law school, they aren't stuck at NorthwesTTTern.

With the average LSAT scores at the top publics I very much doubt this.

[09042014]

If you want to act like a smart ass, wait until you get HLS next fall, THEN come back and smart off.

[merichard87]

Dude Northwestern is top law school. You aren't hiring anybody so please spare us your snide comments concerning your opinions about schools you havent and may not get into.

[Dbate]

Someone earlier mentioned that engineering degrees confer an advantage over a pure science degree and I wanted to ask: 1)Why this is true and 2)Does this advantage apply to biomedical engineering?

Also, I maybe wrong, but no one has answered my initial question. Is your GPA viewed in a negative light if it is inflated by one major?

[merichard87]

1. Engineering degrees are more "specific" than pure science degrees. For example, an engineer could go straight from UG and be a successful and knowledgeable engineer whereas the same cannot be said for a biology or chemistry major who would most likely need advanced degrees to understand and apply more in-depth ideas or research.

2. Biomedical engineering is a bit awkward and I'm not very familiar with it but I would guess that some work experience would be helpful in that area but not necessarily advanced degrees but I would suggest you research more.

3. And no, GPA inflation is not negative because they really would not know. Adcomms are not going to divide out your classes by major and evaluate. Your grades are your grades.

[Dbate]

Thanks. Do you know any good resources to find out more information regarding whether or not biomedical engineering is a sufficient degree? Or any places I could go to obtain more information about the particular topic of patent law?

[09042014]

Thanks. Do you know any good resources to find out more information regarding whether or not biomedical engineering is a sufficient degree? Or any places I could go to obtain more information about the particular topic of patent law?

http://www.intelproplaw.com/

[Dbate]

I have been reading and, from the comments of various posters on the intelprop forum, there seems to be a clear distinction between litigation and prosecution, with prosecution requiring a higher degree of science credentials. Would it be possible to have a successful career focusing solely on litigation with a bachelor's only? Or is an advanced degree required for litigation as well.

I also searched some of the biographies of associates at some law firms and a general trend seems to be that chemical engineering is a preferable degree. However, I would prefer to avoid that route as I don't find the prospect of building chemical plants extraordinarily appealing. Can a BS in chem cut it for litigation?

[lostjake]

1. Engineering degrees are more "specific" than pure science degrees. For example, an engineer could go straight from UG and be a successful and knowledgeable engineer whereas the same cannot be said for a biology or chemistry major who would most likely need advanced degrees to understand and apply more in-depth ideas or research.

2. Biomedical engineering is a bit awkward and I'm not very familiar with it but I would guess that some work experience would be helpful in that area but not necessarily advanced degrees but I would suggest you research more.

3. And no, GPA inflation is not negative because they really would not know. Adcomms are not going to divide out your classes by major and evaluate. Your grades are your grades.

Biomedical engineering was a joke at my school. Everyone wanted to go make artificial limbs and such. Its usually a mix of 300 level mechanical engineering courses and 200/300 level Bio courses. The problem was that most places will hire a mechanical to do the mechanical part of a limb and an electrical to do the electrical part. I only knew a couple (small program) but 1 was hired by the USPTO and is working on Cosmetic products (an awesome job that I wish I would have applied for) and the other couldn't find a job, went to grad school for a education cert and is teaching 7th graders. I would guess finding a job in bio would be fairly hard, and I don't think you could do much prosecution with it.

[merichard87]

I have been reading and, from the comments of various posters on the intelprop forum, there seems to be a clear distinction between litigation and prosecution, with prosecution requiring a higher degree of science credentials. Would it be possible to have a successful career focusing solely on litigation with a bachelor's only? Or is an advanced degree required for litigation as well.

I also searched some of the biographies of associates at some law firms and a general trend seems to be that chemical engineering is a preferable degree. However, I would prefer to avoid that route as I don't find the prospect of building chemical plants extraordinarily appealing. Can a BS in chem cut it for litigation?

Electrical Engineering is the most marketable degree for patent law. Chemical Engineering would be good down here in Houston with all the big oil companies but I can't speak for your personal career goals. And I would be inclined to agree with the poster above. BiomedE just seems like a mishmash of other courses frankensteined together to try and make a credible degree. I wouldn't suggest it.

[Dbate]

I have been reading and, from the comments of various posters on the intelprop forum, there seems to be a clear distinction between litigation and prosecution, with prosecution requiring a higher degree of science credentials. Would it be possible to have a successful career focusing solely on litigation with a bachelor's only? Or is an advanced degree required for litigation as well.

I also searched some of the biographies of associates at some law firms and a general trend seems to be that chemical engineering is a preferable degree. However, I would prefer to avoid that route as I don't find the prospect of building chemical plants extraordinarily appealing. Can a BS in chem cut it for litigation?

Electrical Engineering is the most marketable degree for patent law. Chemical Engineering would be good down here in Houston with all the big oil companies but I can't speak for your personal career goals. And I would be inclined to agree with the poster above. BiomedE just seems like a mishmash of other courses frankensteined together to try and make a credible degree. I wouldn't suggest it.

I am from Houston so I understand the pervasiveness of the oil industry. However, I would prefer to live on the east coast in the long term. I really appreciate all the help, this is a more or less esoteric field and it is rare to come across people with legitimate knowledge.

I have already ruled out electrical engineering due to my complete lack of interest. So as of now, I have narrowed it down to chemistry or chemical engineering. I really enjoy chemistry and think it would probably be a greater boon to my GPA than chemE, but I might go through a chemE curriculum if necessary. Do you--or any other poster who would like to contribute--think that ChemE is necessary for litigation or will a BS in chemistry suffice? (I don't really have a desire to do prosecution).

[digitalcntrl]

Someone earlier mentioned that engineering degrees confer an advantage over a pure science degree and I wanted to ask: 1)Why this is true and 2)Does this advantage apply to biomedical engineering?

Also, I maybe wrong, but no one has answered my initial question. Is your GPA viewed in a negative light if it is inflated by one major?

I actually work as a patent agent and go to law school part-time so I will try to answer some of your questions:

1) Engineering degrees are valued because a significant amount of patent prosecution & litigation occurs in this area. Electrical is especially hot because it is broad area and there are a lot of semiconductor and circuit applications filed each year. There are significantly fewer applications that leverage a pure science degree and it does require a higher level of understanding that a BS may know.

2) Biomedical Engineering is useless. This is another one of these new exotic engineering majors which sounds nice but is not in very high demand by patent firms or their clients (mainly because they don't know what exactly you bring to the table, they will go with what they know and are comfortable with). You want broad well known majors like electrical engineering.

[digitalcntrl]

I am from Houston so I understand the pervasiveness of the oil industry. However, I would prefer to live on the east coast in the long term. I really appreciate all the help, this is a more or less esoteric field and it is rare to come across people with legitimate knowledge.

I have already ruled out electrical engineering due to my complete lack of interest. So as of now, I have narrowed it down to chemistry or chemical engineering. I really enjoy chemistry and think it would probably be a greater boon to my GPA than chemE, but I might go through a chemE curriculum if necessary. Do you--or any other poster who would like to contribute--think that ChemE is necessary for litigation or will a BS in chemistry suffice? (I don't really have a desire to do prosecution).

Patent litigation is very a different. A patent litigation may be impressed by your technical background, but will also consider non-technical majors (which means there also will be significantly more competition). Your law school grades will be very important in this area.

[merichard87]

I have been reading and, from the comments of various posters on the intelprop forum, there seems to be a clear distinction between litigation and prosecution, with prosecution requiring a higher degree of science credentials. Would it be possible to have a successful career focusing solely on litigation with a bachelor's only? Or is an advanced degree required for litigation as well.

I also searched some of the biographies of associates at some law firms and a general trend seems to be that chemical engineering is a preferable degree. However, I would prefer to avoid that route as I don't find the prospect of building chemical plants extraordinarily appealing. Can a BS in chem cut it for litigation?

Electrical Engineering is the most marketable degree for patent law. Chemical Engineering would be good down here in Houston with all the big oil companies but I can't speak for your personal career goals. And I would be inclined to agree with the poster above. BiomedE just seems like a mishmash of other courses frankensteined together to try and make a credible degree. I wouldn't suggest it.

I am from Houston so I understand the pervasiveness of the oil industry. However, I would prefer to live on the east coast in the long term. I really appreciate all the help, this is a more or less esoteric field and it is rare to come across people with legitimate knowledge.

I have already ruled out electrical engineering due to my complete lack of interest. So as of now, I have narrowed it down to chemistry or chemical engineering. I really enjoy chemistry and think it would probably be a greater boon to my GPA than chemE, but I might go through a chemE curriculum if necessary. Do you--or any other poster who would like to contribute--think that ChemE is necessary for litigation or will a BS in chemistry suffice? (I don't really have a desire to do prosecution).

Litigation is a different animal. It will be alot easier to get into lititgation with a Chem degree than prosecution. However, as I understand it you won't get any courtroom time for a while once you enter biglaw so you might want to be sure you're comfortable with pushing paper for a while. And personally I would go with ChemE. Its more marketable as a whole than Chemistry. And I'm from Houston too! Yay!

[YCrevolution]

..

[Dbate]

Thanks. Y'all have been incredibly helpful and I really appreciate it.

[Dbate]

Bump

I have another GPA related question and I don't want to be obnoxious and start another thread. I recently got my grades back for this semester and did pretty poorly (again *sigh*). First semester I got a B and a B+ and ended up with a 3.52 and this semester I got two B+'s for a 3.59, but my cumulative GPA is 3.56. I have heard that graduate schools tend to forgive first year grades under the assumption that the transition to college is hard, but I worked really hard and still pulled poor marks so I don't know how I can do better. If things keep treading this way I know that Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc are out of the question, but do you know whether or not a 3.56 could get into other good (but slightly lower ranked) schools?

So people know I am not just being lazy, I have already checked how grads from my school have done and people with my GPA have gotten into schools like Georgetown (which would be amazing for me because I want to live in DC), but I am still really worried about my GPA. Will graduate schools forgive low freshman year grades?

[kalvano]

No, they won't "forgive" freshman grades. Why would they? They still have to report them.

Want to know where a 3.5 will get you? http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com.

[merichard87]

If you are struggling during your freshman year what makes you think things will get easier? Maybe you need to re-evaluate. Eliminate some things that may be distracting you.

[09042014]

Bump

I have another GPA related question and I don't want to be obnoxious and start another thread. I recently got my grades back for this semester and did pretty poorly (again *sigh*). First semester I got a B and a B+ and ended up with a 3.52 and this semester I got two B+'s for a 3.59, but my cumulative GPA is 3.56. I have heard that graduate schools tend to forgive first year grades under the assumption that the transition to college is hard, but I worked really hard and still pulled poor marks so I don't know how I can do better. If things keep treading this way I know that Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc are out of the question, but do you know whether or not a 3.56 could get into other good (but slightly lower ranked) schools?

So people know I am not just being lazy, I have already checked how grads from my school have done and people with my GPA have gotten into schools like Georgetown (which would be amazing for me because I want to live in DC), but I am still really worried about my GPA. Will graduate schools forgive low freshman year grades?

Other types might but law schools really don't. You've still got three years to raise your GPA.

[Dbate]

No, they won't "forgive" freshman grades. Why would they? They still have to report them.

Idk, someone, perhaps my college dean, said that graduate schools do not look upon freshman grades with the same amount of scrutiny as they do grades in the latter years. Perhaps this is wrong and, if so, I am screwed.

If you are struggling during your freshman year what makes you think things will get easier? Maybe you need to re-evaluate. Eliminate some things that may be distracting you.

I wish there was some flaw that I had like not studying or drinking too much, but I have done none of those things. The problem seems to be only that my peer group is smart. For example in my cell biology class my average was about an 88% which, under normal circumstances, would have been curved to be at least an A-, but due to how well everyone else did, it was still a B+. The same is the case for my other classes where you have to get at least a 95% or 94% to get an A.

If it was just a flaw within myself I would not be as worried, the problem is that I bet the averages in all of my classes. So even though I know my grades are not good, over half of my peers are making lower grades than I am. And considering that pretty much everyone here was near the top of their class, to beat half of them makes me think I am must be doing something right, I just need to figure out how to beat the other half. And I don't know how to do that without totally living in the library.

[kalvano]

You want to go to Yale? Live in the library.

[Dbate]

Does anyone have any tips on how to raise the GPA? I think for starters I may take more non-science classes. I have taken chem, bio, labs, and math this year and next year I am going to take more poli sci classes for my major so I think that will help. But does anyone have advice, perhaps regarding what you, or someone you know, did in a situation like mine?

[redsox]

I have a quick question regarding GPA. I currently am a college student on the cusp of deciding which major to pursue. I intend to have at least one major be political science (because I really enjoy it), but with regard to the other I am unsure which science I should pursue simultaneously. I have a lot of interest in chemistry (and would prefer to major in chem), but I am not as adept at chemistry as I am in biology. As of now, I have gotten B+'s in my chemistry classes but A- in bio. I know that a second major is unnecessary but I really enjoy science and potentially would like to work in patent law, so it is literally required. Will law schools care if your GPA is inflated by one major (i.e. the political science classes) but your other major classes are around the B+ range? Will potential employers care? Thanks.

What motivates you to use the word "literally" in this context?

[09042014]

Does anyone have any tips on how to raise the GPA? I think for starters I may take more non-science classes. I have taken chem, bio, labs, and math this year and next year I am going to take more poli sci classes for my major so I think that will help. But does anyone have advice, perhaps regarding what you, or someone you know, did in a situation like mine?

Take extra, bull shit courses over summer break. The type of class you are almost promised an A. Sometimes they even do it at a community college.