Well, it’s time to head back to school after all these years, now that I’ve finally figured out what I wanna do.
The counselor at the local community college where I’ll start out has been nudging me to plan on transferring to the U of Cal system, (which, I guess, has higher requirements for this degree), taking honors courses, etc. This appeals to my idealistic, slightly romantic, scholarly leanings of learning for learning’s sake; “it’s not just a degree, it’s an adventure”.
However, I’ve talked to a few people who have jobs that require this degree (BS Comp Sci), and a couple other people in unrelated fields who also have degree pre-req jobs, and they all say, basically, something to the effect of “get the degree as quickly, easily, and as cheaply as possible”, or “if I had to do it all over, I wouldn’t have worried so much about getting 'A’s, and would have just slid by with the minimum GPA, 'cuz employers don’t look at the GPA, just the piece of paper.”
I guess I’m having a hard time swallowing the idea that society is set up to reward such mediocrity. Anyone here have a “real” job? Is there any benefit to a “better” education, or is this cynical view correct?
I’ve found it doesn’t matter what you have your degree in, so long as you have it. And the only time people’ll care about GPA is your first real job, or that’s what I’ve seen so far. At mine, they didn’t even care that I’d been to college, they just wanted to be sure I’d show up on time.
I took Honors courses for my first couplea years and I certainly wouldn’t have wasted that time if I got to do it all over again. Now, I’m doing it the fast and easy way.
The degree you get can matter, if you are going into a field that needs you to have a specific background, like the sciences or accounting.
Too, now that you know what you want to do, why not get the degree in that? You will enjoy your classes much more, and do better in them because if that. And GPA can make a difference, especially if this is a career change for you or if you ever decide to head to graduate school, even in another field.
In my last “real job”, a degree in accounting would have been a huge help - I would have saved a lot of time that I had to take to learn the basics so I could be an effective member of the team as far as the accounting aspects (I was an internal auditor. I was good at it, but the accounting was always my weakest point).
Oh, there’s no question about getting a degree; I know what job I want, and I know that that job requires a degree. My question is whether or not I should get the “better” U of Cal degree, or the cheap, easy Cal State degree. (I assume the piece of paper may not list my GPA, but may refer to what school I got the degree from.)
Speaking as a manager who has done some hiring in the science field:
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A degree from a good university is better than a degree from a mediocre one. A degree from a great university might be better than a degree from a good one (although I went to Cal Berkeley, and the undergrads were badly shortchanged unless they pushed really hard).
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GPA, in itself, matters not at all. I can’t think of anyone I’ve interviewed whose GPA ever came up, or was even known.
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If you apply yourself to getting good grades and taking a more difficult course of study, it will matter most in unseen ways – you’ll know more, be more used to hard work, and will thus get promotions faster than people who have grown used to coasting along, relying on “the minimum” to get them by.
It isn’t. A higher education places you in a better rung on the socioeconomic ladder. If your only point of reference is other high school or community college graduates, they will have a much different perspective than someone with an MBA or a degree from Stamford. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.
I graduated from a good college with a crappy GPA. I can tell you that right off the bat, a lot of oportunities were closed to me immediately - jobs in banking, engineerng, many consulting firms, management training programs with Fortune 500 companies. A lot of these positions are highly competitive and required a minimum GPA pf 3.5 to even be considered. If you plan to go back to grad school in a few years, a low GPA or craptastic college could still hurt you.
When I was in business school, I transfered to better school after 2 semesters because I though the school was a joke and I didn’t want an MBA from it on my resume - dim students, mediocre profs, poor campus recruiting. I’m sure glad I did.
When I was looking for a job last year, companies still wanted to know my GPA and SAT scores and I’ve been out for over 7 years!
Lets compare my last couple of jobs -
After B-school job - working for a Big-4 Consulting/Accounting firm doing management consulting. Bad hours and lots of travel but a lot of variety and the opportunity to work with smart, interesting people. I get to work directly with top management instead of being their office bitch boy. Plus people quake in fear at the young consultant because a) we are the only ones in suits and b) they think we are going to lay them off like Office Space (we aren’t). When not traveling, I gots me a sweet view of the Hudson River.
Current job - management consultant for a small boutique firm. Same kind of work as before but I get to work in Europe and I get stock options. Plus, a nice unobstructed uptown view of Midtown from the Empire State Building to the Chrystler Building.
Temporary job I had between - bitch boy from some jerkoff in a family owned business. Basically doing all the crap work with a bunch of drones with accounting degrees from local colleges. Great veiw of our fat uneducated receptionists ass.
Moral of the story - If all you want is a j-o-b in some cubicle, go where ever and just finish. If you are even thinking about any “real” job in enginnering, marketing, consulting, finance (real finance like banking, not bookeeping for some warehouse), or going to grad school, go to the best school you can get into and get the best grades you can.
Remember, the goal of college is to be a better person when you come out the other side, not just the same person with an extra line on their resume.