Anonymous is a fourth-year, African-American student studying Industrial Engineering at Georgia Tech. She is a Georgia native who, for the past few years, has become very acquainted with and fond of the Atlanta area. While her experience on campus has not been negative, during our conversation, Anonymous shared several observations and trends that appear to characterize “GT Culture.” While Anonymous appreciates the apparent racial and cultural diversity at Georgia Tech, she feels as though much of GT Culture rests on the variety of students’ academic profiles.
It’s all about grades here. There’s definitely a hierarchy. And the pressure stems from within the student body itself. When I first meet someone, they don’t even ask me my name — they ask me, “what’s your major?” and “what classes are you in this semester?” Yeah, academics is a ranking. And here, I’m not an Industrial Engineer. I’m just a “glorified business major” or an “imaginary engineer.” Don’t even get me started about GPA.
There are two aspects to GT Culture: the social aspect and the academic aspect, but I think the stereotypes stem mainly from the concept of academics here. People say “social culture at Georgia Tech is non-existent.”
It’s a Tech stereotype: we’re all geeks, we’re all boring and ugly and have no life. But it’s actually very diverse here. Like, I get on the bus and hear three different languages. There’re so many people with so many different interests, from chess, to soccer, ballroom dancing, Tech Rec…
With academics, it’s all based on rigor. I hear the sentence “she’s not even an engineer” a lot. Yes, it’s an engineering school, but why is this statement negative? It’s so easy to feel like an outsider here. Even study groups can be exclusive. It’s like you’re basically judged by your major and your academic standing.
Tech is very one-dimensional in their pipeline to success. As soon as I got to my second semester here, I decided to switch my major from Chemical Engineering to Industrial. But in order to change my major, the average of my grades in certain STEM classes has to be over a 3.0, so I’ve not officially been able to have my major changed. Even though I’ve taken several IE classes and work with an IE academic advisor, I’m still registered as a Chemical Engineering major and cannot change it yet. When I got an internship offer from Southern Company, my IE academic advisor actually told me to decline the opportunity. She said that I was “not suited nor qualified for such a position,” since I was technically still a Chem E, and would struggle — even though I’d taken several IE classes. She didn’t even ask any questions about my background or what I was interested in career-wise. Just assumed I couldn’t do it. Of course, I proved her wrong.
“There is heavy emphasis on the success of engineering students here,” Anonymous commented. “It’s an engineering school.” When asked what she thought students could do to make a difference in this aspect of GT Culture, she suggested that “students should make it a priority to talk to and have conversations with people who are different, and not just academically different.”
4th year, Industrial Engineering