<p>So I finished my undergraduate degree on a generic Business Administration degree with an option in: marketing management from a local CSU school.</p>
<p>I have no prior internships and have been looking for one all this summer, but got rejected to every company, firm, recruiter, school job post that I've applied too. I have work experience in retail and recreation jobs, but no work experience in the marketing field.</p>
<p>Here's my main issue: I graduated with a 2.6 GPA, 2.8 major GPA. Please give me constructive criticism because I understand that I've been a slack off and have not been at my best during school time. I know its hard to believe that as of right now I will try to get my act together, but I am definitely determined to do it so give me the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>I'm actually still enrolled in the school and am now pursuing a 2nd option of Finance. With NO internships as a senior, it is completely impossible for me to land an internship without a high GPA. I just got a job as a bank teller for Wells Fargo and will be starting next week because I figured this may help me with working in finance. However, I do NOT want to continue this position to go to personal banker and etc. I've thought of a couple scenarios on what I should do and I wanted your guys' advice on which path I should go on.</p>
<p>(Enlisting in any armed guard is a no-no for me)</p>
<ol>
<li>Continue to look for entry-level marketing positions and internships as I continue schooling for Finance</li>
<li>Finish my Finance option by Fall, then use winter and spring quarter to retake classes to raise my GPA (if done successfully averaging at 3.7 GPA's for those 2 quarters, I can raise my GPAto a 3.3)</li>
<li>Any other options you can suggest.</li>
</ol>
<p>I've spent the last month creating detailed cover letters to each company I applied for and I haven't gotten a single interview. There's no way for me to even get my foot into the door for an interview and this is whats stressing me out.</p>
<p>The GPA ship has sailed IMO. A high GPA is not a guarantor of getting interviews, especially in marketing where jobs are non-existent. You’ve probably not had a single 3.7 semester so I doubt it’ll start happening for you now. Face it, you’re bored as hell in pretty much every class you’ve ever taken and your memorizing ability is not above par. Furthermore, a 3.3 GPA will not make you competitive for internships, so it’s a losing battle. Go fight a battle that you can win, not one where failure is guaranteed no matter how well you do.</p>
<p>Go out there and do something that actually matters instead of trying to get consistently over 93% on tests where only 5% of the class does so, where your professor is foreign and therefore costs you points on said tests due to his poor writing skills. I know people with 3.8s that aren’t getting internships or interviews. I know professors with <3.0 undergrad GPAs. GPA is Emperor, but the Emperor has no clothes.</p>
<p>True, I do get bored in almost every class I’ve taken outside of a handful. However, I do not doubt my intelligence on being able to excel in school. I graduated HS with a 3.7 and 1920 on SATs and only attended this school because parents begged that I stayed close to home. I’m not defending my case, but merely asking for advice on how to approach my poor situation. </p>
<p>If the GPA ship has sailed, then what is the best way to approach my situation? You cannot be telling me that I am completely screwed because of the mistakes I’ve made my previous years. I’m completely willing to retake courses for another entire year if that is what it takes for me to be able to succeed.</p>
<p>I’m just wondering what the best way to approach this situation is.</p>
<p>Ah, I see, you’re a high-IQ, low-GPA type. You should’ve majored in anything but business. Anything from Engineering to English would’ve been better for you. Have you thought about grad school? Your high SAT is a precursor to doing well on the GMAT, and grad school would be a much cleaner slate than screwing around re-taking your Ds. Because (as you are now realizing) school/degrees are considered worthless by most of the workforce, the GPA cutoffs for a par-ish grad school are probably more forgiving these days than those for internships.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if or where you could get in, but anything sounds better than screwing around re-tracing the steps of your past failures. Attending school into your 20s in such a mediocre and pitiful fashion just seems like a precursor to a life of mediocrity.</p>
<p>Also, someone is probably going to show up and call me a ■■■■■ right now.</p>
<p>Outside of the context of this awful website, a 1920 is a high SAT score (an 1800 is the 80th percentile). The OP is clearly intelligent and writes well – there’s no need to attack him, BigTicket. You’re not helping him get out of his predicament.</p>
<p>Right. Well, when you read through all the Chance threads and find out that 2100 is way too low for top-tier universities, I guess you see things from that paradigm.</p>
<p>It’s all over, this is why I tell you kids to focus all on GPA. It’s not just jobs, but grad schools too. Let this be a lesson to you all, it’s ALL ABOUT GPA!</p>
<p>Whistleblower, I’ve thought about grad school as the best way to change my course to a different field. However, to my knowledge, a low tier MBA program is close to useless or has very little significance. And it is obvious that there is no way for me to get into a decent program with my current GPA and no work experience even if I study well for the GMAT.</p>
<p>I’m definitely deciding to pursue finance as a secondary option for me and finish up my degree in fall. And I will look into an MBA program 3 years down the road, but I’m looking into getting good experience upon graduation and there aren’t many opportunities for a student in my situation.</p>
<p>I scoff at this. Put all of the B.S. successes into a room, and all of the B.S.'s with mediocre lives into a room, and the successes will, of course, have higher overall GPAs. But the failure room will also be chock FULL of people with strong GPAs. See: 75% of lawyers under 30.</p>
<p>And the low-GPA room would of course also be full of people who made it, albeit in industries that lack esoteric GPA cutoffs. The OP could become vastly more successful than you without defying the odds in the least as long as he doesn’t spend his life chasing careers that elude him.</p>
<p>Your GPA is in fact horrible for a marketing major. Question - did you change majors earlier in your college career? Anyway, some of your situation is your own doing, and some of it is a function of the realities of the economy today. Would you like me to introduce you to some people with 3.5+ GPAs who fail completely at life? </p>
<p>If you graduated from college anywhere from prehistoric times until around the mid-late 70s, you would be the man, regardless of your terrible GPA. However, they had a lot harder of a time getting into college. Failure will always be the norm in life; to succeed is to buck the trend.</p>
<p>“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with that failure”.</p>
<p>“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other”</p>
<pre><code>-Abraham Lincoln.
</code></pre>
<p>So what? You messed up. Learn from your mistakes and go at it again. It’s a cliche, but it’s true that it’s not the amount of times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up. </p>
<p>Abraham Lincoln failed at business four times and lost many congressional races including an important senate race two years before becoming president. As a lawyer he lost 20 of 51 decisions before the Illinois Supreme Court. Still a winning record, but far from looking like the record of a dominant attorney. He also suffered from clinical depression most of his life. His attitude expressed in the quotes above are the reason he didn’t stop trying and eventually landed a gig as leader of the free world. Lincoln by the way had 18 months of formal education in his entire life and was largely self-educated. </p>
<p>Personally, I have had some massive failures in my life as well, including dropping out of high school, going to jail on numerous occasions when I was younger, being in some truly disastrous relationships, failing hard at every job I had between the ages of 16-19, and many others. Now I’m 24, a San Antonio college sophomore with a 3.98 GPA and I will very likely be transferring to the University of Texas in the spring and will be trying for the University of Chicago after that. I also have a great job now with experience managing and leading othes, along with a loving partner and awesome daughter. </p>
<p>The point in all this is that the fact you didn’t succeed the first time around doesn’t really mean anything- at all. Everybody fails in life. What matters is how you respond to that failure. I mean look at some of the cynical posters on here who try to destroy every other man’s house before building their own. They will likely always be failures in life unless they incur some significant life experiences that force them to change their attitudes. It’s not because they don’t have the potential to succeed- they are very bright and witty people. And it has nothing to do with their socioeconomic status if they can afford to be on the internet 16 hours a day. No, it has everything to do with their states of mind and the intertia of their negative thoughts. Avoid that kind of cynicism and you will take a huge leap forward.</p>
<pre><code> I also don’t understand this whole personal banker business you talk about. Bank tellers often move into bank management, operations, finance, lending, etc… Personal banking is just one of many opportunites in a bank. The thing that matters way more than your job title is the quality of the company you work for and the quality and quantity of advancement opportunities within that company.
</code></pre>
<p>Inmotion, thank you for the words of encouragement. I’m definitely not going to give up on my situation and I understand there are many other methods for me to get back up and succeed. I was just hoping that someone on CC has experience or familiarity of my situation and can offer me advice.</p>
<p>Questions:</p>
<p>I’m definitely looking into sales positions for my resume. Where does sales positions lead in terms of a couple of years into the positions? Management?</p>
<p>What do you guys think of “Experiential Marketing”? I know of some people who do these side jobs from craigslist ads such as “Brand Ambassador” and “Event Promotions Marketing”. Anyone have knowledge of these?</p>
<p>Has anyone taken part of or heard of AMA (American Marketing Association)? Although it seems pretty useless to be a member, I’m curious on how beneficial it may be.</p>
<p>I agree that retaking classes for a 3.3 is not the answer. What you need to do now is simple–find the best possible job with growth potential and work like a dog. </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if it’s in sales, finance, retail. Look for compnies where there are places to go. After 2 years in sales, you can still be doing the same thing or you can be a VP. You need to choose the right spot and work like you’ve never worked before.</p>