Forget Your GPA | Hacker News Reader

Forget Your GPA

refer.ly

24 pointsSparksZilla9 comments

It depends on what you want to do with yourself. You also need to be able to be brutally honest with yourself.

If your goal is to be a doctor, attorney, MBA, you need to sell your soul to get the best grades possible. A JD/MBA from a top tier school translates into a high paying gig when you leave. The same degree from a state school means you get to review contracts for some County or work at Starbucks.

I had a 2.2 GPA in CS -- mostly because I had to work full time through school, was lazy, and didn't have enough time. I love computers and IT, but didn't have passion for what I was doing. I was passionate about history and writing, and ended up with a dual major that was fun for me (I had a great in history), even with hardly any time investment. I stuck with CS because I had no interest in academia/teaching/law or other things that a History degree helps with.

I adopted a system like what this guy did... I was actually detained by campus security in the final for one of my "E1" classes because the professor had never seen me and thought I was taking the test for someone.

That meant that I wasn't going to be working for a top tier technology company. So I got a job with a tiny company, built a network, and ended up with a pretty awesome role.

If you're really struggling with the material and can't get an A after giving it 110%, you're just not at the top of the curve. It's not the end of the world, accept it or move on to something you are passionate about.

If you're really struggling with the material and can't get an A after giving it 110%, you're just not at the top of the curve.

This was me in my first collegiate art elective. I put in enormous effort, but there was no there there. It was a valuable and humbling experience.

I'd used the author's "technique" in high school by making sure to get As in math and science, and simply not trying in the humanities classes. This plan backfired terribly, and in multiple ways.

Backfire #1: I was accepted by my top choice (CS @ CMU), but I wasn't offered any scholarships, and finances pushed me towards a less expensive option.

Backfire #2: it delayed recognition of the gaps in my abilities. I thought I was getting 'B's because I wasn't trying, when I actually had (sometimes serious) unaddressed gaps in my skill set.

Backfire #3: it delayed the realization that I really enjoy some of the subjects I'd blown off.

As a teacher in a top grad school, the grades matter somewhat, but if you show yourself to be smart as fuck in class (by asking good questions/making good comments), and get B's, I'm still recommending you.

Yes, teachers do get asked who their top students are by employers.

Having just served on the admissions committee for a top CS school, a student's recommendation letters and publication record are weighted far more heavily than his or her GPA. That said, the GPA is not entirely discounted---especially for those applying from unknown or lesser known schools. It can act as a red flag if the rest of the application is not stellar.

I had a professor in college who set the A at 93%. We didn't have pluses and minuses. Going into the final, I was very close to an A, at 92 point something. The final had, like, 200 questions. I did really well, but was one question away from 93%.

The professor suggested that I review the test to see if I can find an error in the questions that I got wrong. I couldn't.

He said: "I'm giving you a B. I know it sucks, but guess what: if I give you an A right now, tomorrow you'll forget about it. This B, you'll remember it for the rest of your life. It's gonna suck right now, but you'll see that out of everything I've taught you, this B is going to be the thing that matters."

That B, it made me a wiser man.

As a grad student, this is especially relevant since I have three courses that are mandatory to getting the degree. One subject on "Enterprise Systems" was more of a history lesson in software, and another subject comprised largely of unpublished material by the professor. I kinda feel foolish looking at the effort I put in to study those two subjects, when I could have spent the same energy in something else. Like learning lisp maybe, which I have been wanting to for quite a bit. I also resonate with putting extra effort into obtaining an A+ for a relevant subject that goes a long way, which I am now doing for a course on Virtualization and another on TCP/IP Architecture.

You can learn Lisp on your own, outside of the curriculum. But you would not learn that unpublished material from the professor outside of school. Unless the professor's material was rubbish, maybe everything worked out for the best. Once you get a job you'll have 25-45 years to learn about more practical topics.

This depends on which field of study you're in. If you want to go to grad school for astrophysics, getting that high GPA score is important. But, I do agree that halving your time to get a B+ versus an A is good. This type of decision making shows that you're good at managing your time and setting your priorities right.

FWIW, don't opt for the E1/B1 part of the curve in that graph. I graduated with a GPA around 2.2 and it made it very hard to find a job.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com