<p>I had lower than that undergrad. My field was and still is very narrow though, so there weren’t even that many opportunities (BE 25 years ago).</p>
<p>I ended up going to grad school after taking a low-paying job at a university, so I could start a few classes for free and they could see that I could get As. I got the As and was working and going to grad school for free part-time (the job allowed two classes per semester including two in the summer).</p>
<p>It is probably wise to target small to medium size companies, maybe government subcontractors as opposed to government contractors which tend to be large. They would not be as worried about GPA. It is only an entry level problem, once you get your first job, try to stay in it at least 3 - 5 years, and no one will care about your undergrad GPA.</p>
<p>My major GPA was much better, 3.4, so I always listed that and not my overall GPA. I would of course reveal it if asked and in the on-campus interviews, I had to list my overall GPA.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, if you have a 4.0 GPA overall, perhaps it would be better to list your Major GPA as 4.0? Then it kind of hides that you are great in all your classes, so possibly not a supergeek I know just in an off-the-cuff way, I would say “wow” about a 4.0 Major GPA and say “Hmmm” about a 4.0 GPA (implying overall). Prejudice and all.</p>
<p>(I had a 4.0 GPA in my master’s program by the way, and it was engineering too. Small class size helped.)</p>
<p>You pretty much just contradicted yourself.</p>
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<p>and</p>
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<p>Some people are simply better at this than others. Not all high-GPA students, and from my experience not even a majority, have a high GPA because they do nothing but study. Most of the people up there are there because they actually have a talent, and those individuals are generally rather well-rounded. But it is pretty common to think that just because something appears out of reach for you, that someone else couldn’t do it without having some other deficiency.</p>
<p>Of course, there is merit in hiring lower GPAs if your goal is to get people who would be content with a slow and methodical “climbing the ladder” approach to a career…</p>
<p>Yeah,I don’t get this " a kid with a 3.8 GPA in engineering wouldn’t be a normal person." Both of my kids graduated with honors in engineering and are quite “normal.” . One of them had a 3.9 through his junior year. I can assure you that he is quite normal, athletic, social, with lots of friends .He played club volleyball , went to lots of the football and basketball games and parties so certainly was not studying 24/7. </p>
<p>A lot depends on the school too. Mine was hard but I think gave A’s I think than some others; There were almost no 4.0 seniors, but many had 3.5 + graduating with honors. I was one of them. I studied a lot and do lean toward nerdiness. But I was well rounded enough to do various EC, including Senator and VP of the student body. </p>
<p>If I were a hiring mgr (I am not), I’d be leery of a high GPA (or any GPA) where the student had zero EC / outside interests in college. </p>
<p>I think GPA is a very flawed way to measure a candidate’s worth. I am going to give you some examples:</p>
<p>I know a guy, he is 38 years old, currently trying to finish his degree in Industrial Engineering. He has 3 kids, a wife and works 20 hours a week. He is currently on academic probation, he has been doing a co-op at this manufacturing company here in Iowa doing IE type of work and they really like him. I saw him last week and they offered him a full time position with the company. Very good worker but obviously struggles with academics.</p>
<p>I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person but my grades are below average. I am not a good test taker and I struggle with several types of dyslexia. I am finishing my first internship in December and so far, I have heard nothing but great things from my manager. The duties of this internship were infinitely more fun and interesting than any IE course I have taken.</p>
<p>Then, you have people who are very book smart, very driven, talented academically with a high GPA but have absolutely no common sense. </p>
<p>I know a girl who is extremely book smart, her GPA was 3.6 and she just changed her major to Business. When I found she had changed her major, I was shocked. I asked one of my buddies WHY and according to him, she said that she was tired of so many hard classes and she wants to have more fun in college. I would not call a person like this intelligent or smart by any means.</p>
<p>I am sure GPA may in some cases be a useful tool to measure a candidate’s worth but I think, for the most part, it fails miserably. </p>
<p>Yes, I agree that only looking at GPA can be flawed and not always tell the whole story. But it seems equally flawed and not fair for you to assume that people that can get high GPA’s are somehow not normal, weird ,unbalanced, and with poor social skills just because your own grades are “below average.”</p>
<p>As a engineering PE with almost 30 years of experience with lots of important sounding titles like VP, Principal and Senior Project Manager on my resume, way back in college I was one of those with a GPA somewhere between 2.8 and 3.0. After having lots of seat time in the business and being responsible for hiring my staff at several ENR Top 500 consulting firms, I make very limited weight on GPA coming out of an engineering program. To me, it is more communication skills, both verbal during interviews and how the cover letter, resume and follow-up communication reads, along with coursework, internships and other work experience plays into the position being sought.</p>
<p>I will note that some of my talented hands-on engineering classmates had low GPA. That made it hard when companies, for understandable reasons, looked at higher GPA when trying to hone down the applicant list. But I think they all found jobs eventually. </p>
<p>My electrical engineering major DD (Jr standing) has a 4.0, is in a highly regarded sorority chapter at an SEC school (and is running for an executive board position in the chapter), participates in the SWE and SEA and IEEE chapters on campus, and is very attractive, well groomed, highly social and otherwise “normal”. Please don’t stereotype.</p>
<p>Good for her! Sororities are not exactly known for attracting a lot of intelligent people but maybe your DD(whatever this means) is an exception.</p>
<p>bachoowiz, You seem pretty determined to insult people. One of my kids was in a fraternity, and again, I can assure you he was quite intelligent , as well as very good looking. :)</p>
<p>I had very high GPA, more like 3.8+ and above but I was burnt out after college because I took very heavy course load. Sometimes I had more like 19 units, all engineering courses.</p>
<p>Is anyone arguing that GPA is the only criterion of importance? It seems like people are mentioning GPA in isolation, as if it is the only issue considered, and that is true only in the very early stages of hiring and only at some companies, and is done for reasons of efficiency. Remember that the companies have no obligation to look at your resume in the first place, if they think they can make their job easier by only looking at resumes over a certain GPA, then that is fine.</p>
<p>While we are at it, how many here are arguing against their / their family’s own experience? It seems like most people with a low GPA are decrying it as a measure, while most people with a high GPA think it is at least somewhat of a good measure.</p>
<p>I’ve been asked repeatedly after so many years on the job. Hey I’m female so maybe that’s it. I’ve always keep the fact that I was in an engineering honors society just in case on my resume up until 10-20 years later. The last recent interview in 2005, my GPA was asked by a youngish guy.
So my advice to my daughters is that GPA is like currencies, it’s never hurt to keep them high within reason.</p>
<p>@rhandco , that’s an interesting idea about the major vs overall idea.</p>
<p>@bschoolwiz you actually bring up something I’ve been wanting to address. There seems to be this common belief that social/communication ability is inversely proportional to technical ability. First hand experience with high achieving students has actually led me to the understanding that strong work ethic is generally what led to better technical understanding of subjects. This strong work ethic goes hand in hand with working well in team and group environments. There are exceptions to this, but they are as much exceptions as charismatic C students who later turned out to be CEO’s of major engineering/technical companies. I think you’ll find many more people in top positions with cum laude somewhere in their resume than not.</p>
<p>Forgive me if I don’t buy into your excuses for mediocrity. I can counter your examples with my own about working fathers who are high achieving students in engineering. Granted there aren’t as many, but that’s due more to the fact there aren’t as many non-traditional students in general; otherwise they’d be called traditional :-p</p>
<p>This self serving idea that book smart people have no common sense is related to the lack of communication ability myth above. Seriously think about that. You’re saying smart engineers can’t figure out when they’re getting scammed, or how to dress for the weather, or how to be empathetic toward others? Don’t confuse youth and inexperience with a lack of common sense. It’s really easy to pick on a fresh 22 year old graduate with a 3.5+ who has never supported themselves and say “what, you don’t know how lease agreements work?” “what you don’t know how to get your new car registered?” “You paid $400 at Whole Foods for your weekly groceries?” etc etc. </p>
<p>I posted my previous comment because I was frustrated with the lack of real innovation I see nationally. It is the root cause of a stagnate economy and crappy job market across many industries (what’s that national labor participation rate again?). In the end I actually agree with you that GPA is not the sole measure of one’s intelligence. However, I would submit that a combination of effort and intelligence are represented by GPA. Therefore, corroborating a high GPA with outstanding work performance or research is a reasonable way to quickly estimate someone’s overall value as a potential new hire. A normal BS in engineering requires more than 40 courses. I seriously doubt you had the exact same professor with the exact same test format for all of those courses, so being a “bad test taker” doesn’t fully explain a mediocre GPA.</p>
<p>That said, my engineering school career center posted 3 Siemens jobs today that clearly state students with a 2.8 and higher may apply. So there you go OP, some honest to goodness evidence that one can get an engineering job with a 2.8 GPA.</p>
<p>Mediocrity? What does a lower GPA have to do with mediocrity? I am the kind of person who thinks outside of the box and I don’t stress over getting an 80 on a test versus getting a 90. Is it really that big of a deal? I have worked with some “talented” people academically who stress over every single detail of everything they do, some absolutely idiotic and irrelevant.</p>
<p>I abhor working with these types of “nerds” that stress over everything and everything needs to be done their way. I find these people mostly narrow-minded, intolerant, unable to work well with others and totally unable to see the bigger picture when they are so focused on the little details.</p>
<p>I have an acquaintance who is your typical Aero E nerd. We were at the gym last week and he was stressing over the order in which I was doing my exercise routines and how long I was taking between
each series. </p>
<p>People like that drive me crazy. I don’t want to hang out with this dude anymore. No wonder, he does not have many friends and good luck finding a woman who will want to be around a person like this.</p>
<p>I may not be the smartest people in the world but my ability to see the big picture is something that has always helped me tremendously in the business world.</p>
<p>I think we can all agree that basic answers to OP’s question (“Can you find employment if you’re overall GPA is 2.8?)” are: </p>
<p>1) Probably Yes… if you get in the door for an interview (it may be harder than with higher GPA) and can communicate your value to the employer. Internship experience would be a plus.
2) After the first job, GPA is usually not a factor </p>
I know just in an off-the-cuff way, I would say “wow” about a 4.0 Major GPA and say “Hmmm” about a 4.0 GPA (implying overall). Prejudice and all.</p>