"General" Degrees

[Thisguy]

Thanks guys, that helps explain things. Good talk.

 

[redmariner97]

ODU carries a General Engineering Tech. degree that is non-accredited. You study a little of Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical Enginnering.

 

[nittany03]

(offtopic, not about USNA)

Why you gotta hate on the IT/IS/IST guys? Some of us just don't want to spend our lives writing code when we could make the big bucks bumping elbows with executive types. We get a few dropouts from Compsci and Compeng in IST here at Penn State, but they usually can't cut in IST either because they can't handle the business aspects of the major.

Of course I'm bringing the average starting salary down by going the Navy route... but somehow "Student Naval Aviator" sounds cooler than "IT Consultant/Analyst"

"You must spread some reputation around before giving it to pennst8 again."

Right on the head. I don't know how it is at other colleges but IST at Penn State is more of a cross between business and CompSci than a holding pool for failed programmers. Though it did take in at least one disillusioned Aerospace Engineer. I was in the inaugural class and they were still getting their crap together with our courseload but there was some serious stuff just coming online when I graduated. Think "network defense" classes where you learned how to hack. And a lot of it's group work so if you piss off your fellow classmates they may screw you (for legitimate or not-so-legitimate reasons). Just had to stick up for my degree . . . although you still can't spell bull**** without IST . . . :icon_tong

Hopefully the end of that tangent.

 

[brd2881]

The important thing at USNA is to graduate with the grades you need to get the service selection that you want. The next 5-30 years of your life are going to be largely dependent on your grades during those 4 years, so struggling through a "hard" major is not really a wise choice. I know I sort of got away from the point of your post, but hopefully I conveyed the mentality that causes a lot of USNA guys to go for "easier" majors rather than struggle through something they aren't good at.

I agree for the most part, but grades are only a small portion of your service selection. I graduated as a EE major from USNA with a 2.8 and I worked my a$$ off for that GPA. I got my first choice at service selection. As for CS stuff like Fly said, it blows bigtime. My course load at the academy was 15 credits first semester plebe year. 18 -22 credits every semester after that except spring of senior year when I was back down to 15 because I had validated a calculus class.

 

[Fly Navy]

I agree for the most part, but grades are only a small portion of your service selection.

Not sure how the Academy does things, but in NROTC, grades are a HUGE part of your selection, if I remember correctly. If you suck at school, you don't get what you want.

 

[Schnugg]

General engineering used to be only available as an option to those failing in an acredited engineering major. Now, it can be chosen from the begining.

Not true. Having just fnished teaching there for 3 years, I can say you do not select GE as your major when you choose late in your plebe year. It's not a major. It's a way to get a general BS and graduate because you were not able to maintain a 2.0 in your selected engineering discipline.

Also have orders back there in July 06 out to retirement.

r/
G

 

[pennst8]

Hopefully the end of that tangent.

You must spread some reputation around before giving it to nittany03 again.

What % of IST get jets?