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A cap on engineering is a necessary evil to ensure quality of students’ education. Too many students and not enough resources will not help anyone — students, teachers, or administration.
However, it is the college's responsibility to give incoming students realistic expectations of their chances of getting into their desired program. Caps can create “moving target” expectations, forcing students to concetrate on staying within a certain grade percentile rather than achieving a set GPA. This sense of uncertainty makes it especially difficult for students to gauge their own their ability to join a major.
For students who do not make it into their departments of choice, academic advising must be up to par. If students pay money and don’t get into their dream program — even if they could have gotten into a similar program at another school — advisers must work diligently to make sure students still get the most out of their education.
If the cap is truly to be a measure for preserving quality of education, and not a strictly cost-saving method, the College of Engineering needs to reach out and show investment in each student's education.
A version of this article appeared in the Apr 25 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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I don't agree that it's a necessary evil to cap. It's a result of not hiring enough qualified professors and support staff. In the 25 yrs since I graduated, Tech has spent millions on facilities, research facilities, yet they cannot grow the staff necessary to meet the requirements. That's dissappointing. The quality of Tech engineers graduating today are as good or better than 25 yrs ago. We have had great success with the hires we have made from Tech. Maintaining the quality is a cop-out for not building up the engineering the educational staff to meet needs.
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Quality over quantity. Maybe if we limit the number of engineers, people will finally see that there are in fact other majors at this university.
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People need to stop getting worked up over this. It is not hard to get a 3.0 GPA or above, especially in freshman or sophomore year. If you can't get a 3.0 then you are not a quality student and why should engineering pick you up? Engineering at VT will benefit from a higher quality pool of students. If you think more equals better then you should re-evaluate your logic.
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It's apparent after reading the news article detailing this policy that the editorial board did not fully research the policy prior to writing this.
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it would seem to me that canceling/cutting/capping programs were jobs do not exist would benefit the students. i cannot imagine that the manufacturing base for electical components/equipment in this country can support the number of electrical engineers that graduate every year.
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