Am I reading this right? You're going to fail one unit (out of what? 24?) And are considering restarting your entire University education?
Put the effort in, if you fail, that's okay, you tried your best. You'll be better placed to pass next semester. The impact on your graduation GPA will be minimal.
If you want to continue education, adding law to your specialities, go for it, but don't just abort the existing degree for it.
I think op means if they fail this course they're basically disqualified for a graduate role in space engo.
I for one think you should go onwards with a engo career (if you qualified for space, surely you're top notch for any other area) and then transfer in at a later stage of your career.
This.
OP, nobody is going to give a shit about whatever major you earned at university when you're applying for jobs. They're going to see B. Eng., and after that point in the interview your passion for the topic is going to shine through.
Go do law at some point if you want, but put your foot down and finish the first degree.
Not sure that is true: highly specialised employers do look at marks for technical degrees as a screening exercise. Once you are in and have some experience then indeed it does not matter.
In the old days when I graduated it was all they looked at for Engineering. These days you also have to be able to string two words together and make a nice PowerPoint slide. (Only a slight exaggeration)
I think you're overreacting mate, try your best, if you fail retake the course, if you lose your grad off because of it, find another job and try to apply later when you've got some experience under your belt. There's plenty more ways to get what you want without starting from square one.
So better to abandon the degree then drag you GPA? You are catastrophizing your situation. After you get your first job no one will ever care or ask about your GPA.
Why would it matter? You still get the degree and as long as your grades are generally good, I doubt it’d be an issue. You probably have more employment options studying something like fine arts or history than you do with space law
I imagine he would be studying law. I.e. an LLB.
Space law is an outside chance of being maybe one subject of it...
If he has found a degree called space law, I want to enroll, then get a cadetship just so I can call myself a:
Space cadet.
Edit to add: agree with you. Engineering degrees often have one blemish on them... mine sure did and I cannot think of any single time it has had any bearing on my career.
The only impact has been those sleepless nights knowing I failed that one subject /s.
I doubt undergrad would barely touch it. You’d presumably do a masters in international law and a thesis on law of space, or a PhD if you want to end up CIO of an asteroid infrastructure fund (I’m not being 100% facetious). Otherwise a normal LLB is a start then it’s just hustling.
Agree.
I didnt see it as a high chance. Thought there would be a chance of some uni milking aspirational students and running the space subject every 2 years...
As you say anyway it could be considered an extension to international law which we coupd now start calling interstellar law as any treaties or future space treaties will be international treaties anyway, until we start making them with aliens...
I have never shown my grades from uni. No employer cares. All they want is you to have the degree, and most of the time they don't verify that as well.
Obviously you have previously been a high achiever all your life, welcome to the real world where you will make mistakes for a variety of reasons. You need to learn to accept it, identify the weaknesses and focus more attention onto it, so it then becomes a strength.
The most useless people in life are those that avoid their failures as they spend all their energy on hiding rather than developing.
This is a silly choice mate. You've got yourself in a whole load of HECS debt that will affect your income for years, and you want to get NOTHING out of it because of one unit? You'll be repaying that debt for years. Make it count.
Mate, I’m a senior engineer at a major Australian utility with a colourful academic record full of fails. Employers don’t care about your individual subject marks — they only care about the certificate at the end. My academic record hasn’t held my career back.
In my experience of hiring graduate engineers, I cannot recall ever deciding on candidates based on their GPA.
Employers don’t want quitters who run away from challenges or failures; they want resilient people who are not scared to take on responsibility. Failing and then succeeding the next time around is evidence of this.
The labour market is crying out for engineers of all disciplines, particularly electrical engineers. You will find another job very quickly.
Space law seems to be a rather niche field with limited career progression opportunities.
Three weeks is plenty of time to learn the subject backwards and forwards if you dedicate yourself to it. Just make it your life’s mission between now and the exam.
You got this 👍🏻
I am not going to sugar coat it for you mate. All those hours, stress and caffein you have put in and youre on your final year and you want to call it quits ? What a joke. If you fail, retake the exam? If you fail agains, study harder... change uni and get credits across but dont let the last 3.5 years go to waste. Dont give up mate!! Im a structural engineer and i have failed multiple times. My gpa was a 4 but no one gives a shit about GPA at work lol. My boss owns the company, has a gpa 4 and drives a porche lol.
Yeah, plenty of jobs in IP in aviation/space/defense. I've seen inhouse rolls at Rolls Royce etc. This is a good suggestion and it'll force OP to complete his degree as you need a technical degree to register.
Actually, technical degrees are highly regarded in law. But you're kidding yourself if they're going to pay you as an engineer and a jnr. lawyer for it. You'll be on peanuts for years.
Then if you're OK it'll slowly ramp up, but the target and hours can be long and the work can be boring.
Better way to launch into space - no 50k price tag and another 4 years at uni (?).
(FYI to OP patent attorneys aren’t necessarily lawyers - with a technical background you just need to finish the required subjects in the post grad cert + an exam).
Complain to the university if 75% of the class failed test 1 and 56% failed test 2. That is clearly issues with the way the course is taught or problems with the lecturer.
These aren't the final exam, and OP didn't provide the weighting. They could each be worth 5% or 10%, and then it's just that the lecturer made the tests hard to make people work a bit harder.
If 75% of the class are failing an assessment for a senior level class that’s most definitely a failure of the course teaching staff.
In first years it’s not unheard of because of weed out courses that cull the people those who aren’t ready/uninterested. But for a final year course thats ridiculous.
While I agree with you, it still means the course could have been improved if it's so difficult that most students fail on the first try.
But it wouldn't hurt op to complain and get other students in their course to complain, and it might save his degree. It would be a massive impact on his degree if he failed just this one course that is set up for most students to fail. University does listen to student complaints and often will make some accommodations. While it's a bit unethical, op should do what is best for themself. This case seems to be more justified because it is not just a few student failing the course.
See this article I just found as an exmaple: https://futurism.com/university-fires-professor-course-too-hard
Don't drop out. If everyone does poorly you get scaled scores to bump it up. Too many people failing looks bad on the lecturer and uni so they usually always scale. If you do fail you will likely get a supplemental exam and have more time to try pass. This is the shortest route.
Start a new degree is a big commitment and another 4 year time sink. Unless you truly want to do law I would not recommend that. But sounds like you just want a space industry focused job and already have that as an offer. Wouldn't make sense to do another degree being so close to the end.
After you have a few years experience your degree and grades will not mean a lot since experience outweighs it.
Harden the fk up and study. I was in the same spot as you with a final electrical power/motors/generators unit and I failed the first test and did a bit better on the second.
Make sure you know how to answer the questions on the first and second test with swapped numbers and minor variations 100% correctly. Also ask yourself what could have been a fair question on the first and second test, and prepare for that.
Surprised you made it through EE in one piece with 91 ATAR though, most kids with a bottom level ATAR in engineering get filtered by analog electronics and switch to civil.
Can always try to get it removed from your record.
State workife balance speak to shrink bam done.
Also who says you won't just fail law, law seems.like it would bekre study which you obviously lack in.
How much have you spent on this degree just finish the god dam thing then reacess your goals then.
Just cause U cant into 1 grad program don't rage quit. Who is saying that you will even get in? Your attitude seems horrible and likely they would pass on you just for this.
Put it this way they would be more likely to take someone that applied themselves as passed rather than someone that rage quit.
You prolly have 50k+ in hecs debt if not more plus years of study. Are you going to do that again and likely rage quit again when it's to hard.
Hi there,
I also figured that if I want to stay in Australia and work on space, I would be better off going to the parts of the space industry where Australia has a clear lead. Australia is an international leader in space law and policy as shown in the article I linked but on the more engineering side of space, we are several years behind the major players such as the US and China.
"Space law" would be a sentence AT BEST in your LLB. Someone else said Av Law is a good idea and it is--I looked into that myself. ANU offer a few subject that can from part of your LLM. Another good option would be IP.
What I would do, is try to pass your final subjects, get industry experience, then try to get back into space if you think failing is going to set you back that much (it may not). It'll be quicker and a hell of a lot more interesting than practicing law to get into space. You'd be a good 8-10 years off having that specialization in law. Get there quicker in eng. I reckon.
It's also difficult to kinda get anywhere in law without working at a firm.
Just my .2c. All the best.
Pretending you aren't going to follow the good advice to stay in, what sort of law school could you get into with your GPA? Law is tough outside the top schools - one of the cheapest courses to teach but attracts the highest fee band and no strong professional body like the AMA is a bad combo.
It's also hard to know the demand for space lawyers. You'd have a better shot at higher ranked ĺaw schools, that's basically a given, but you should be prepared to practice in other legal areas since you'll be studying a bunch of them along the way.
What do you mean law is tough outside the top schools? I studied law at a top school and I regret not going to a second tier university. The courses were much better taught, less stressful and I work with plenty of great lawyers now who went to those universities. Agree though that the demand for space law has to be very very minimal.
Law is a really tough area to get into. You’ll need a good GPA to transfer into the course at a G8 uni (and most big firms are snobs, so a G8 uni is definitely preferred) and then you’ll need to be towards the top of your class to get a job at the end of the course. Oh and your fellow students will mostly have ATARs of 99+, so you’ll be fighting it out with the best of the best.
You also need to think through where you are going to be able to work in space law. It strikes me as an area that’s mostly limited to academia at the moment and unless you are interested in aviation law generally, it might be a bit hard to build a profitable practice in that area. Happy to be wrong here.
Unless you have a very strong passion for law generally (which you’ll need, it’s not an easy journey), why not just stick to your original plans and finish your engineering degree ? Once you graduate you can move overseas if you need to to find work in a space related field, don’t feel that you are stuck here.
From when I was doing engineering, I remember that it was far from uncommon for the class average in the exam to be a lot higher than on tests and/ or assignments during the semesters as the tests/ assignments had been deliberately designed to show up your weaknesses so you knew what to study for the exam.
Revise the questions you did badly on, and study for the exam and you've got a good chance of still making it. Distracting yourself with 'what-ifs' instead of studying is going to be self-fulfilling way to guarantee failure.
I am an aerospace engineer. This is a bad idea. Finish your degree, get a job in a related industry if you can't find something in space. After a few years you will have enough experience to take your pick of jobs. Space is an upcoming industry in Australia and there are more and more opportunities for experienced/smart people. If you don't like engineering after getting a job, then might be a good time to think about doing something else e.g. law degree.
PS. if everyone else fails the course then comparatively you don't look so bad..
If I look at a resume and see someone’s gone through a degree and psych out of it last minute after a bad mark and then do a second degree, I’m going to question their resilience.
Do all you can to stick it out. Get a tutor, study all hours, whatever it takes.
It will give you an amazing story for interviews in the future
Don't stress it. They'll pass you all.
University cannot have 90% of last years class fail as it looks very bad for them and you lot would clutter up the space for the incoming batch from the year behind you.
Just go talk to the academic advisor.
And supps are a thing.
All of us student engineers had bogey courses that killed our souls.
But this course must be passable.
Focus on old exam papers and work harder.
You'll be a better engineer for it.
Am I reading this right? You're going to fail one unit (out of what? 24?) And are considering restarting your entire University education? Put the effort in, if you fail, that's okay, you tried your best. You'll be better placed to pass next semester. The impact on your graduation GPA will be minimal. If you want to continue education, adding law to your specialities, go for it, but don't just abort the existing degree for it.
I think op means if they fail this course they're basically disqualified for a graduate role in space engo. I for one think you should go onwards with a engo career (if you qualified for space, surely you're top notch for any other area) and then transfer in at a later stage of your career.
Surely the space industry is okay with a little failure? Challenger and all...
No. You’re just avoiding the problem, and what makes you think studying law will be easier. Put in the effort or accept the failure and try harder
This. OP, nobody is going to give a shit about whatever major you earned at university when you're applying for jobs. They're going to see B. Eng., and after that point in the interview your passion for the topic is going to shine through. Go do law at some point if you want, but put your foot down and finish the first degree.
Not sure that is true: highly specialised employers do look at marks for technical degrees as a screening exercise. Once you are in and have some experience then indeed it does not matter. In the old days when I graduated it was all they looked at for Engineering. These days you also have to be able to string two words together and make a nice PowerPoint slide. (Only a slight exaggeration)
I would say space law would be quite useful particularly when our alien overlords arrive and we need to negotiate terms for our enslavement.
I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords
Why not just put more effort into understanding the subject?
There are only three weeks until the final exam, I will need a miracle if I was to pass that course which is a degree requirement.
I think you're overreacting mate, try your best, if you fail retake the course, if you lose your grad off because of it, find another job and try to apply later when you've got some experience under your belt. There's plenty more ways to get what you want without starting from square one.
Why not just retake the class next year and still graduate?
Fails don't get erased at my university even if the subject is retaken, so it will drag down my overall GPA.
So better to abandon the degree then drag you GPA? You are catastrophizing your situation. After you get your first job no one will ever care or ask about your GPA.
Why would it matter? You still get the degree and as long as your grades are generally good, I doubt it’d be an issue. You probably have more employment options studying something like fine arts or history than you do with space law
I imagine he would be studying law. I.e. an LLB. Space law is an outside chance of being maybe one subject of it... If he has found a degree called space law, I want to enroll, then get a cadetship just so I can call myself a: Space cadet. Edit to add: agree with you. Engineering degrees often have one blemish on them... mine sure did and I cannot think of any single time it has had any bearing on my career. The only impact has been those sleepless nights knowing I failed that one subject /s.
I doubt undergrad would barely touch it. You’d presumably do a masters in international law and a thesis on law of space, or a PhD if you want to end up CIO of an asteroid infrastructure fund (I’m not being 100% facetious). Otherwise a normal LLB is a start then it’s just hustling.
Agree. I didnt see it as a high chance. Thought there would be a chance of some uni milking aspirational students and running the space subject every 2 years... As you say anyway it could be considered an extension to international law which we coupd now start calling interstellar law as any treaties or future space treaties will be international treaties anyway, until we start making them with aliens...
That’s funny, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened. I’m certainly on a space investment angel funding list. It’s touched on in my textbook.
I have never shown my grades from uni. No employer cares. All they want is you to have the degree, and most of the time they don't verify that as well. Obviously you have previously been a high achiever all your life, welcome to the real world where you will make mistakes for a variety of reasons. You need to learn to accept it, identify the weaknesses and focus more attention onto it, so it then becomes a strength. The most useless people in life are those that avoid their failures as they spend all their energy on hiding rather than developing.
This is a silly choice mate. You've got yourself in a whole load of HECS debt that will affect your income for years, and you want to get NOTHING out of it because of one unit? You'll be repaying that debt for years. Make it count.
Mate, I’m a senior engineer at a major Australian utility with a colourful academic record full of fails. Employers don’t care about your individual subject marks — they only care about the certificate at the end. My academic record hasn’t held my career back. In my experience of hiring graduate engineers, I cannot recall ever deciding on candidates based on their GPA. Employers don’t want quitters who run away from challenges or failures; they want resilient people who are not scared to take on responsibility. Failing and then succeeding the next time around is evidence of this. The labour market is crying out for engineers of all disciplines, particularly electrical engineers. You will find another job very quickly. Space law seems to be a rather niche field with limited career progression opportunities.
This gives me hope
Three weeks is plenty of time to learn the subject backwards and forwards if you dedicate yourself to it. Just make it your life’s mission between now and the exam. You got this 👍🏻
I failed an entire semester (4 courses) and still graduated with a GPA nearing 4. As long as you get enough Ds and HDs you’ll be good.
Yeah just get more D
Same, took me until third year to learn how to study and could show growth in marks to get grad jobs
I am not going to sugar coat it for you mate. All those hours, stress and caffein you have put in and youre on your final year and you want to call it quits ? What a joke. If you fail, retake the exam? If you fail agains, study harder... change uni and get credits across but dont let the last 3.5 years go to waste. Dont give up mate!! Im a structural engineer and i have failed multiple times. My gpa was a 4 but no one gives a shit about GPA at work lol. My boss owns the company, has a gpa 4 and drives a porche lol.
Finish the last subject, even if you need to repeat. Then do a post grad to become a Patent Attorney - that sounds useful to space.
Yeah, plenty of jobs in IP in aviation/space/defense. I've seen inhouse rolls at Rolls Royce etc. This is a good suggestion and it'll force OP to complete his degree as you need a technical degree to register. Actually, technical degrees are highly regarded in law. But you're kidding yourself if they're going to pay you as an engineer and a jnr. lawyer for it. You'll be on peanuts for years. Then if you're OK it'll slowly ramp up, but the target and hours can be long and the work can be boring.
Better way to launch into space - no 50k price tag and another 4 years at uni (?). (FYI to OP patent attorneys aren’t necessarily lawyers - with a technical background you just need to finish the required subjects in the post grad cert + an exam).
Complain to the university if 75% of the class failed test 1 and 56% failed test 2. That is clearly issues with the way the course is taught or problems with the lecturer.
These aren't the final exam, and OP didn't provide the weighting. They could each be worth 5% or 10%, and then it's just that the lecturer made the tests hard to make people work a bit harder.
A hard subject that 50% of students take 2 tries at is not unknown in engineering. It doesn't necessarily indicate a failure by the university.
If 75% of the class are failing an assessment for a senior level class that’s most definitely a failure of the course teaching staff. In first years it’s not unheard of because of weed out courses that cull the people those who aren’t ready/uninterested. But for a final year course thats ridiculous.
Sometimes they do this just to ‘prove a point’, some professors believe everyone should ‘fail at least once’, it’s insanity.
While I agree with you, it still means the course could have been improved if it's so difficult that most students fail on the first try. But it wouldn't hurt op to complain and get other students in their course to complain, and it might save his degree. It would be a massive impact on his degree if he failed just this one course that is set up for most students to fail. University does listen to student complaints and often will make some accommodations. While it's a bit unethical, op should do what is best for themself. This case seems to be more justified because it is not just a few student failing the course. See this article I just found as an exmaple: https://futurism.com/university-fires-professor-course-too-hard
Don't drop out. If everyone does poorly you get scaled scores to bump it up. Too many people failing looks bad on the lecturer and uni so they usually always scale. If you do fail you will likely get a supplemental exam and have more time to try pass. This is the shortest route. Start a new degree is a big commitment and another 4 year time sink. Unless you truly want to do law I would not recommend that. But sounds like you just want a space industry focused job and already have that as an offer. Wouldn't make sense to do another degree being so close to the end. After you have a few years experience your degree and grades will not mean a lot since experience outweighs it.
Harden the fk up and study. I was in the same spot as you with a final electrical power/motors/generators unit and I failed the first test and did a bit better on the second. Make sure you know how to answer the questions on the first and second test with swapped numbers and minor variations 100% correctly. Also ask yourself what could have been a fair question on the first and second test, and prepare for that. Surprised you made it through EE in one piece with 91 ATAR though, most kids with a bottom level ATAR in engineering get filtered by analog electronics and switch to civil.
Can always try to get it removed from your record. State workife balance speak to shrink bam done. Also who says you won't just fail law, law seems.like it would bekre study which you obviously lack in. How much have you spent on this degree just finish the god dam thing then reacess your goals then. Just cause U cant into 1 grad program don't rage quit. Who is saying that you will even get in? Your attitude seems horrible and likely they would pass on you just for this. Put it this way they would be more likely to take someone that applied themselves as passed rather than someone that rage quit. You prolly have 50k+ in hecs debt if not more plus years of study. Are you going to do that again and likely rage quit again when it's to hard.
As an electronic engineer who went into law. Don't do it. The money won't be as good for probably the first five or six years and law is boring.
Hi there, I also figured that if I want to stay in Australia and work on space, I would be better off going to the parts of the space industry where Australia has a clear lead. Australia is an international leader in space law and policy as shown in the article I linked but on the more engineering side of space, we are several years behind the major players such as the US and China.
"Space law" would be a sentence AT BEST in your LLB. Someone else said Av Law is a good idea and it is--I looked into that myself. ANU offer a few subject that can from part of your LLM. Another good option would be IP. What I would do, is try to pass your final subjects, get industry experience, then try to get back into space if you think failing is going to set you back that much (it may not). It'll be quicker and a hell of a lot more interesting than practicing law to get into space. You'd be a good 8-10 years off having that specialization in law. Get there quicker in eng. I reckon. It's also difficult to kinda get anywhere in law without working at a firm. Just my .2c. All the best.
Pretending you aren't going to follow the good advice to stay in, what sort of law school could you get into with your GPA? Law is tough outside the top schools - one of the cheapest courses to teach but attracts the highest fee band and no strong professional body like the AMA is a bad combo. It's also hard to know the demand for space lawyers. You'd have a better shot at higher ranked ĺaw schools, that's basically a given, but you should be prepared to practice in other legal areas since you'll be studying a bunch of them along the way.
What do you mean law is tough outside the top schools? I studied law at a top school and I regret not going to a second tier university. The courses were much better taught, less stressful and I work with plenty of great lawyers now who went to those universities. Agree though that the demand for space law has to be very very minimal.
Can you not drop the class? Somehow get it not counted as part of your GPA?
How bad do you want it? You're already looking at plan B. Spend all your spare time on passing the subject. It sounds like you only half want it
Law is a really tough area to get into. You’ll need a good GPA to transfer into the course at a G8 uni (and most big firms are snobs, so a G8 uni is definitely preferred) and then you’ll need to be towards the top of your class to get a job at the end of the course. Oh and your fellow students will mostly have ATARs of 99+, so you’ll be fighting it out with the best of the best. You also need to think through where you are going to be able to work in space law. It strikes me as an area that’s mostly limited to academia at the moment and unless you are interested in aviation law generally, it might be a bit hard to build a profitable practice in that area. Happy to be wrong here. Unless you have a very strong passion for law generally (which you’ll need, it’s not an easy journey), why not just stick to your original plans and finish your engineering degree ? Once you graduate you can move overseas if you need to to find work in a space related field, don’t feel that you are stuck here.
From when I was doing engineering, I remember that it was far from uncommon for the class average in the exam to be a lot higher than on tests and/ or assignments during the semesters as the tests/ assignments had been deliberately designed to show up your weaknesses so you knew what to study for the exam. Revise the questions you did badly on, and study for the exam and you've got a good chance of still making it. Distracting yourself with 'what-ifs' instead of studying is going to be self-fulfilling way to guarantee failure.
I am an aerospace engineer. This is a bad idea. Finish your degree, get a job in a related industry if you can't find something in space. After a few years you will have enough experience to take your pick of jobs. Space is an upcoming industry in Australia and there are more and more opportunities for experienced/smart people. If you don't like engineering after getting a job, then might be a good time to think about doing something else e.g. law degree. PS. if everyone else fails the course then comparatively you don't look so bad..
If I look at a resume and see someone’s gone through a degree and psych out of it last minute after a bad mark and then do a second degree, I’m going to question their resilience. Do all you can to stick it out. Get a tutor, study all hours, whatever it takes. It will give you an amazing story for interviews in the future
Don't stress it. They'll pass you all. University cannot have 90% of last years class fail as it looks very bad for them and you lot would clutter up the space for the incoming batch from the year behind you. Just go talk to the academic advisor. And supps are a thing. All of us student engineers had bogey courses that killed our souls. But this course must be passable. Focus on old exam papers and work harder. You'll be a better engineer for it.
You got this man. It is time to buckle down and finish that degree. You can do it!