<p>So that's the advice my prof gave (this is coming from an Engineering prof)... He said that you need a good GPA to get your first job and many employers will still ask for your first transcript. Since you can never change your grades, but you could always get volunteer/work experience after you get your degree, then it's much better to get good marks. In other words, you could always build your resume after wards, but the marks on your transcript stays permanent on your record, so don't worry extra-curriculars for now (unless you happen to be one of those few brilliant people who could manage both at the same time). </p>
<p>Just wondering what other's opinion is on this.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I agree with this. Extracurricular activities are a great way to relax after a long day of problem sets and labs, and I think can really help in the long run with how you do in your classes. Sure, if you’re heavily involved in 20 different clubs trying to be officers in each or a Division I athlete it could matter, but if you’re just a member of a club or two I think it’s really a positive experience for your college career.</p>
<p>I don’t know… because I guess this really depends on what you want to do afterwards. Obviously, you have to do EC’s if you’re going for med school, and you never know if you decide later that you do want to go into med. </p>
<p>And besides, it’s also more of a money issue. If your parents could pay for everything, then good for you. But it’d be smarter of you to work to pay for tuition than to end up in 100K of debt. </p>
<p>And plus, I’m not sure about the whole “you could just find volunteer experience afterwards” thing. Again, if you could just live at your parent’s place (or spouse’s), then good for you. But you still have to support yourself somehow if you can’t.</p>
<p>Again, this is not a good blanket rule. Maybe that’s true for engineering, but NOBODY asks journalism job applicants what their GPA was. Media employers want to see clip files full of work done for real-world publications such as student media outlets.</p>
<p>who do you choose? The 3.7 who is all books, or the 3.5 student who has proven experience to lead his/her peers and manage projects?</p>
<p>moderation is key.</p>
<p>and importantly, college is about having fun too. You will never again live in a place where you can walk to see the vast majority of your friends. This is four years of your life. Enjoy where you are now. I’m not saying to throw away your future, obviously, but if you aren’t having fun, what are you doing? Do you want to be miserable for 4 years?</p>
<p>I am always telling my friends and classmates how important it is to gain work experience and EC’s if you want to be employable and competitive when you graduate.</p>
<p>Top engineering employers want to see high GPA and LEADERSHIP. Leadership experience is probably going to come from being involved with student groups. Just saying.</p>
<p>Though I’m not an engineer, I was going through recruiting for consulting, which means GPA matters, but in my case, as well as a fair portion of my peers who got offers, employers were less concerned with my GPA once I got into the interview room than they were with my resume, two-thirds of which was filled with extra curricular leadership experience in college.</p>
<p>One of my friends got a job in marketing after being the publicity director of a campus group (his major had nothing to do with marketing); another went into finance as a psych major after being treasurer of a fraternity. </p>
<p>Your extra curricular activities are just as important as your academic pursuits in most cases. Of course, engineering jobs are most offered to people with prior experience, but getting that first experience depends on your having some sort of other leadership experience in addition to just a GPA. Soccerguy’s right; if you’re an employer, are you going to hire the guy who has a 3.7 GPA and who did nothing else in college, or will you hire the guy who’s got a 3.5 GPA but was president of a campus organization? What tells you more about how the candidate will behave in the workplace?</p>
<p>^You’re right about the interview part (that is, if you could get to the interview with your GPA). If you think about it, you could only talk about your GPA for 5 seconds, but you’ll have to fill up the rest of the hour with something else. </p>
<p>I personally think that an employer would care more about “fit,” because there’s nothing worse than having a guy who’s going to clash with the rest of his coworkers (not trying to be sexist here =P). </p>
<p>But what if you’re the kind of person who can’t get 3.2+ if you’re going to be involved in EC’s? Some students (especially at more academically competitive programs) can’t actually get above 3.2 without studying all day. </p>
<p>I basically have zero ECs (graduating soon), and have a 6-figure job (CS). There isn’t really a cookie cutter strategy for success.</p>
<p>A bunch of ECs are bull*****, IMO. I think time could be better spent doing what you enjoy, rather than doing something you think is necessary to impress employers. There are a few ECs I’ve seen that I think are worthwhile, but I simply didn’t make any time for them. (If you enjoy an EC offered in your community, that’s great, too.)</p>
<p>The employers I’ve met look for intelligent people who can perform their jobs well and fit in with the rest of the company. I don’t think they care if you led some relatively small college club.</p>
<p>This definitely does not apply to business majors, though.</p>
<p>Edit: Internships are very important, though.</p>
<p>That might be true for engineering or comp sci, but it’s absolutely not true for things like nonprofits, advocacy, or, as someone else mentioned, journalism. Those industries don’t care what your GPA is as long as it’s reasonably high. They’re much more interested in your work experience.</p>
<p>Plus, I have some friends graduating from top engineering schools who have good GPAs but who didn’t do internships, and are having a REALLY hard time getting jobs because, they are told, they don’t have internship experience. I guess even engineering firms want people with some work experience.</p>
<p>Depends on what your goals after graduation are… a 3.1 from an academically competitive program still puts you ahead of tons and tons of other college graduates.</p>
<p>If you are going to college to spend 4 years in the library, I would recommend that you drop down a notch in the school you are going to, so you can actually enjoy your life. The goal of college is not to be miserable for 4 years.</p>
<p>^Why didn’t they emphasize this when we were in high school?? Oh right, that’s because most people expect that they’re going to be the ones getting 3.5+. </p>
<p>I wish society wouldn’t place so much pressure on which school you go to and how prestigious it is. There has to be a better reason why so many students at top colleges choose to stay there when they have low gpas.</p>
<p>^haha, yeah, it’s only here in which people actually care which school you go to. </p>
<p>But then that doesn’t explain why students nevertheless choose to go to difficult schools (and stay there) when they know their gpa would be much higher if they were somewhere else.</p>
<p>^ because a student’s work habits, etc, play a much bigger role in their GPA than the school they attend. there would need to be a massive difference in the expectations between schools to see a significant change in grades.</p>
<p>I definitely agree to the “don’t sacrifice GPA for extracurricular/social activities” thing to the extent that the extracurricular activities are something like an internship or an academic/volunteer club with a leadership role. In terms of social activities, my personal motto is, if the difference between a 4.0 grade in my classes is no social life, and a 3.5 grade is a vibrant social life, I’m definitely going to go with the 3.5.</p>