Core Course Grade Policy
In January of 2008, the faculty of School of Civil Engineering approved a policy regarding passing grades in core Civil Engineering courses. This policy was approved by the College of Engineering in July of 2008 and thus has taken effect as of the Fall 2008 semester.
The policy can be summarized as follows:
A student must earn a grade of C- or better in all core courses.
A student must earn a grade of C- or better in a core course in order to use the course as a prerequisite.
A student shall be dismissed from the School of Civil Engineering after three attempts to complete a core course where each attempt resulted in a grade of D+, D, D-, E, F, W, or WF. A grade of W does count toward the three attempts. Re-entry will be solely at the discretion of the Civil Engineering Undergraduate Committee and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. The Undergraduate Committee has the prerogative to set the requirements, if any, for re-entry.
What is a core course?
A core course in Civil Engineering is defined to be any course required for graduation with a Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering that is not specifically required by the First Year Engineering program. Note that technical elective courses and general education courses are not subject to this policy. The current core courses in Civil Engineering are listed below. Note that this list of courses may change as curriculum modifications occur.
CE 20300
CE 21101 - Thermal Energy & Sciences in CE
CE 27000
CE 29202
CE 29700
CE 29800
CE 29900 - Thermal Energy & Sciences in CE (temporary course number for CE 21101)
CE 33500 - Materials in Civil Engineering
CE 34000
CE 34300
CE 39201
CE 39800
CE 49700 - Materials in Civil Engineering (temporary course number for CE 33500)
CE 49800
Basic Science Requirement
CGT 16400
COM 11400
MA 26100
MA 26500
MA 26600
ME 20000
PHYS 24100
STAT 51100
What about courses I took before entering Civil Engineering?
Since it is not uncommon for students to take Civil Engineering core courses before entering the BSCE degree program, there are questions as to whether unsuccessful attempts prior to entry will "count" towards the three attempts policy. To clarify this situation, the following guidelines have been established:
Any unsuccessful attempt of a Civil Engineering core course shall count towards the three attempts policy regardless of when the course was taken.
Any unsuccessful attempt of a course listed as officially equivalent to a Civil Engineering core course by the Registrar's Office shall count towards the three attempts policy if the attempt occurs after the student has entered the School of Civil Engineering.
If a course is usable towards meeting a Civil Engineering core course requirement but is not considered to be officially equivalent to the core course, no unsuccessful attempts of the course shall count towards the three attempts policy.
How about transfer courses?
In order to receive credit for a transfer course, you must have received a grade of C- or better in that course. Therefore, any transfer credit that you receive for a core course automatically counts as a successful attempt of a core course; conversely, you will not receive credit for any transfer course for which you obtained a grade lower than a C-, so such courses will not count as an unsuccessful attempt. Note: if you take a course at a regional campus (e.g., PU Calumet, IPFW, IUPUI, …), you actually transfer the grade for this course back to our campus, not just the course credit. Therefore, if you receive a grade lower than a C- in a regional campus course that is officially equivalent to one of our core courses, that attempt will count against you.
What are the impacts of this policy?
The most obvious impact of this policy is that you can be dismissed from the School of Civil Engineering if you are not successful in getting a grade of C- or better in a core course in three attempts. Students who have had two unsuccessful attempts of a core course shall be informed in a timely fashion after grades have been posted for a given semester that they are in danger of being dismissed. Students entering the BSCE degree program shall be informed about any core courses that have not been successfully completed and about the number of attempts they may make to obtain a successful grade in such courses before being subject to the three attempts policy.
On occasion, students may already be in violation of the three attempts policy for a given core course prior to entry into the program; for example, a student requesting readmission may have already failed a core course three times. The CE Undergraduate Office reserves the right to deny entry to such students; such decisions are made at the discretion of the CE Undergraduate Office in consultation with the CE Undergraduate Committee.
This policy will also affect the time to degree completion for those students who do not obtain appropriate grades in core courses. It is the intention of the faculty to have students repeat core courses for which they have not obtained an appropriate grade as soon as possible; this is the basis for the prerequisite policy. Students are discouraged from trying to "push ahead" and take other courses for which the unsuccessfully attempted core course is a prerequisite, as this frequently leads to continued poor performance in the higher-level courses.
Finally, be aware that the prerequisite policy may require a student to change her/his course registration after semester grades come out, as the myPurdue system always assumes appropriate performance in all currently enrolled classes when signing up for next semester's classes.