Hey Aska,
So I’ve got a bit of a doozy for you here. I’m an engineering student, who, after a horrible first year, is currently stuck with a repeat probation academic status.? Now, in order to graduate, I need to get 600 hours of engineering work experience, and as far as I can tell, my two options are the PEY program and the summer internship program. In order to apply for either of these programs in my 2nd or 3rd year, I need to be in good academic standing. To get on good academic standing, I need to get a 70% average for the next two semesters, which will upgrade me to a probation status, and then I need another two semesters of 70% average to get me to a good academic standing. That, however, means I can in no way be in good academic standing until the end of my 3rd year, assuming I can pull off the 70% averages. By that time, it will be too late to apply for or even fulfill the PEY or summer internship programs.
What then am I supposed to do to get my 600 hours?
I had a rough 1st year because my program choice, TrackOne, ended up with me taking courses I absolutely hated. I am now going into the only program I loved in TrackOne, but the repeat probation status, of course, still applies. I believe I can be much more successful now in this program, but these 600 hours are a big concern.
Best regards 🙂
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hey there,
that is a tough situation, i’ll give you that. before i go ahead and give you my advice, i’m going to let you know that if you’ve not done very well in first year, maybe you should consider that engineering might not be for you.
i know you’re going into a program you like, but consider how many of the courses in the rest of the program you’ll like just as much. take a look at the courses you’ll be taking in 2nd, 3rd and 4th year. do you like them? do they sound exciting, or will the majority be mind-numbingly dull? don’t rush ahead into this decision, trust me, because it just gets harder as the years go on.
that said, if you really are sure about going ahead with this program, then you will need to complete those 600 hours. like you said, the university’s internship opportunities won’t be an option for you, but you don’t have to complete them through the school. you can, but you don’t have to. so what i would do in your shoes is cast a wider net.
start looking for other internship opportunities that aren’t monitored by the school. is your dad’s friend brothers with an engineer? great, ask him if you can tag along and do your hours with him one summer. or, if you’re like me and have no contacts whatsoever and need to push and shove your own way through life, go online?and see if there are any internships out there. look, here’s one. they will also probably favour people with higher marks, but there are a lot of jobs out there and i’m sure, if you’re persistent, you’ll find someone among all those rejections. heck, that’s how i got this job.
best of luck friend,
aska
2 Comments
Tom
uh… even those who didn’t opt for TrackOne in first year still had to do quite a few courses that weren’t totally relevant to their majors, because U of T wants them to have the option of transferring to another engineering program after first year if they so desire. For example, Mechs and MSEs had to take programming and ECE110 (circuits) even though they had little chance of actually using that knowledge in upper years. ECEs ironically have the exact same course load as Track One for some reason. So it’s not like Track One put anyone at an academic performance disadvantage.
Additionally, a lot of the “irrelevant” courses in 1st year still train you with valuable problem solving and study skills that can easily apply to future “relevant” courses. I chose ECE, but I can still credit CIV100 with helping shape my mind in problem solving for electromagnetic physics and transistors. Likewise, my friend in Industrial has not had a real programming course since first year, but she still finds it useful to write small C or MATLAB programs to speed up some assignments.
And yeah, in such a situation, go “freelance” with the job hunt and spam companies with your CV and letters. No harm in trying even if the job seems like it’s a long shot.
As for the PEY, is good standing actually needed? I thought the requirement was just a CGPA of 2.0. And if you don’t have that, but you have a semester that showed massive improvement over a prior failed one, you can use that as leverage to appeal for a waiver of requirements. The staff are human beings too and they can recognize that these numbers don’t necessarily indicate how “smart” someone is.
aska
i definitely agree with you about the course situation, which is why i advised the asker to think carefully about whether they wanted to continue in engineering! good to know someone from the faculty agrees. according to this (http://engineeringcareers.utoronto.ca/files/2012/07/PEY-Student-Guide-2013-2014-1.pdf), you have to be in “good academic standing at the time of registration,” and if the person is on academic probation, that means their GPA will be below 2.0 – though the student guide does say that special consideration may be made if your CGPA falls below 2.0 – thanks very much for pointing that out 🙂