<p>I'm a junior majoring in sociology at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Seeing how I only have a year left in college, I've been thinking about my employment prospects after graduation. I'm really interested in Advertising, Public Relations, Marketing research and perhaps working for the government. </p>
<p>However, my lackluster GPA (3.3) in a not so appealing (or intensive as engineering or other hard sciences) major does not look so good on my resume. I'm hoping to graduate with at least a 3.45 or a 3.5 if I get lucky. My question is, around what GPA do firms and companies see as competitive for hiring...I know a lot more than your GPA is looked at when looking for an employee, but it is a major factor isnt it? Oh yeah, and the other thing that you should know is that I dont really have much work/internship experience besides the odd jobs that I had as a student. </p>
<p>GPA doesn’t matter much once you get to the interview. Many companies screen using the GPA (only interview people with over a 2.5, or 3.0, or 3.5) and some, mostly government, jobs pay more if you have a higher GPA. If you get to the interview your GPA is no longer that important unless it’s exceptional.</p>
<p>You’ll have to do a lot of selling yourself if you can’t get any experience. I suggest you start looking for internships and on campus jobs related to what you want to do. You say you want to do PR, Advertising, etc. Why not see if you can get a club or event to let you run an advertising campaign for them? Maybe even get involved in some music scene and do online/flyer advertising for them. The most important thing is that you seek out a project and lead it. It’ll give you something to talk about in the interview other than “I like marketing.”</p>
<p>And don’t worry about your GPA now. What’s done is done and just do as well as you can from now on. Especially if you don’t want to go to a prestigious grad school something in the 3.3-3.5 range isn’t going to be bad, and 3.5 or above is going to be pretty good. Your #1 concern now needs to be getting relevant experience, whether it’s through a paid internship or unpaid work.</p>
<p>I would say that the GPA might have little to no effect on your employment. Interview and dedication to the firm or company will outshine any 4.0.</p>
<p>idk about that, a below 3.5 for any liberal arts degree is pretty crappy. My friend graduated with a 3.4 in sociology, no job to be found other than retail.</p>
<p>Thats what sucks about doing liberal arts majors, have fun while your in college since its so easy,but essentially screwed afterwards.</p>
<p>Sociology is under the social sciences, but I guess you might file that under liberal arts.</p>
<p>I agree that employers attach more importance to your major than they probably should - but it’s just sort of ridiculous to consider what majors actually do have a point.</p>
<p>Humanities are typically screwed, and the only thing usually heralded among the social sciences is economics - but really, you learn nothing of real use in econ.</p>
<p>The physical sciences might be more respected - but I don’t see why. A physics or chemistry degree is just as worthless as any humanities degree when it comes to a specific, non-academic vocation or career.</p>
<p>I guess the only decent majors these days are engineering and comp sci/ technology ---- but really, not everyone wants to be an engineer or work in the IT department.</p>
<p>well, for liberal arts degrees, theres no real way you can use it other than indirectly. The gpa is more of a test to see how much were you willing to work (lets face it, its easily doable to get a 4.0 in a liberal arts degree as long as you attend class).</p>
<p>peter= from a former chemistry major now chemical engineer, the reason why physical sciences, or any high math/science degree is well respected because of a few things.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It requires a lot of work to get the degree. Many spend hours upon hours studying every week only to maintain a 3.0 gpa, so getting that type of degree shows your work ethic.</p></li>
<li><p>Physical science degrees also require more problem solving intensive classes. For many jobs, your required to make decisions on your own. It seems more reliable to trust someone that has good problem solving skills to make that decision, rather than someone that doesn’t go too far into it.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>and no, its not easy to get a 4.0 in any major. They pay engineers 60k+ a year starting for a reason</p>
<p>I would try to get some work or internship experience, that will make you much more competitive for hiring than any GPA, especially for the jobs you listed, especially in government. Internships are sort of the defacto gateway into government jobs, because for your first job you need to 1) have a tiny bit of experience and 2) know someone who is willing to pluck your resume out of the pile of thousands. You get both of those things by interning. And it’s the same in all the other fields you listed as being interested in. </p>
<p>So unless you’re prepared to work an unpaid internship after college, you better try to get one this summer. Even then, you may still have to do an internship at least part time before you get hired or find a position that will hire you, which can be tough in the fields you listed as their epicenters are all in cities with high cost of living (DC, New York, Chicago, LA). and/or you will probably end up temping. I"m not saying this to scare or discourage you, I’m just saying that I graduated last May, and the few of my friends who have jobs are the ones that started paving the way early with internships, networking, and anything else they could do to build experience. </p>
<p>A GPA between 3.3 and 3.5 is not bad, but it isn’t going to mean anything if you don’t start networking NOW and getting experience NOW. I would also look around your campus for part time jobs or clubs that relate to what you’re interested in or at least teach you office skills.</p>
<p>Hahaha - that article about top majors proves I’m exactly right.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The 10 listed are exactly all engineering, plus computer science, plus information technology. Ding, ding, and ding!</p>
<p>Notice how you said that they are all math/ science intensive (except comp sci as far as I know) - yet not one physical/ natural science major is found on there nor is mathematics.</p>
<p>First of all, it takes a lot of work to get ANY BA or BS at an elite university.</p>
<p>Secondly, “problem solving skills” are the vaguest skill set known to man with your semantics - it encompasses everything - ALL work in ALL fields require “problem solving skills.” As a chemistry major, you have skills in “solving” chemistry problems. Quite surprisingly, these may not be transferrable to the business world where you might be considering the viability of merging with a related corporation and its effects on the bottom line. Really, criticial thinking classes or social science experiments may require more creativity than say, a chemistry problem. Balance that equation’s electrons, make the forces add to zero - belay on, dear drone.</p>
<p>It’s funny that you point to engineering as some high-paying money-maker job. The top paying fields include doctors, lawyers, and usually the highest paid of all, business. Not that money is God in anyone’s life - but just food for thought.</p>
<p>And I guess I meant to say it would be easy for me to get a 4.0 in any major.</p>
<p>If you examine your life as a cash flow system and consider that those salary figures for Engineers are for BA whilst Lawyers need 3 extra years (opportunity cost) plus on average 100,000 in loans. Also only lawyers from the top 14 law schools (top 10-20% of graduates in those schools) make good money, the average salary for lawyers outside the top 14 falls to 60,000 starting I’m afraid, making Law School decision as a cash flow problem seem disadvantageous since costs are relatively the same across the board. </p>
<p>Law school graduates are having an extremely difficult time right now.</p>
<p>For doctors the outlook is slightly better, 4 extra years (opportunity cost) plus an average of 140,000 in loans. Then 3 years residency working an average of 40-50k whilst 2k monthly loan payments start coming in. Not to mention Mal-Practice insurance in the future. Simply, don’t become a doctor for the money.</p>
<p>In the end of the day if you understand the concept of internal rate of return, present value and opportunity costs, Lawyers and Doctors are almost always bad choices in today’s economy if you are only concerned about money.</p>
<p>Lawyers and Doctors were good choices even just 10-15 years ago because education was 60% cheaper, market was less saturated for lawyers, and Mal-Practice insurance was 80% cheaper. </p>
<p>Business is a different story, small business owners, Investment bankers and consultants have good cash flow outlooks.</p>
<p>peter= engineers take a majority of that field, mathematics majors and physics majors fall a little bit lower in that bracket but are still in the upper 50k’s which are well above the national average.</p>
<p>comp sci is also really math intensive if you didn’t realize, im not talking about an AAS. a BS in computer science requires a lot of work.</p>
<p>Degrees are to show that “hey, you’re not ■■■■■■■■” in a non technical field, going for a more math/science based major shows that you can adapt and follow a higher learning curve.</p>
<p>its a lot easier to go for the “smarter” person that took the harder major with equivalent gpa. Is it a wonder why business internships can be actually be done by other majors other than business as long as they have a high focus on math? pretty obvious why</p>
<p>and by the way, i would take a STRONG look into your thought on doctors/lawyers, you do realize a majority fall below the pay you are seeking. And business majors is always a hit or miss. Some make it big, some dont</p>
<p>^^ and some people see a college degree as something other than just a means to earn a large paycheck. The amount you make after college is not the sole determinant of the worth of your degree. </p>
<p>I was just listening on the radio to a competition held at some university (forget which one) every year called the “Life Raft Debate” where professors from different schools within the university have a debate about why their discipline was worthy of receiving one of six seats on a life-raft after an apocalyptic event and thus being saved for the future of humanity. It reminded me a lot of this debate, which goes on on CC all the time and is more or less pointless: humanities vs. sciences. </p>
<p>I disagree with marc’s premise that anyone can get a 4.0 in a humanities discipline by showing up to class. Science majors make that argument all the time, and most of them in reality turn out to be lousy English/History/Sociology/French/Arabic/etc students. Just as most people that specialize in Humanities turn out to be lousy science students. There are some crossovers, but generally we specialize in what we like best and we like it to a certain degree because we are good at it. The humanities vs. science sniping seems to me to just reflect a certain level of insecurity with people’s own lack of innate skill. If a chemist is bad at English they get defensive and say that it doesn’t matter because English is a pointless skill for losers. And vice versa if a History major sucks at math, they say it doesn’t matter because they’ll never NEED to do differential equations anyway and everyone knows that math majors have no people skills or ability to analyze and understand the world around them. </p>
<p>The truth is that universities and societies need all kinds of people. We need engineers, diplomats, writers, doctors, lawyers, mathemeticians, computer scientists, astronomers, teachers, etc etc etc. We should all learn to have a little respect for the fact that having other people specialize in what they’re good at, allows us to specialize in what we are good at, and stop wasting breath trying to prove our own discipline’s superiority over the other. It’s childish, it’s immature, and it doesn’t answer the OP’s question.</p>
<p>I’m more judgemental on the work required to get the degree rather than the degree itself.</p>
<p>Sure, writing papers all day for history may be hard, but its quite doable. Its not hard to memorize and understand a section in history in a weeks time if you put the effort into it. (My friends a history major, and he even says its a load of s*** with just busy work)</p>
<p>Now, if you get a 4.0 in business, obviously you worked hard for it, obviously your pretty much set on grad school, obviously in the end you will get paid more.</p>
<p>Now, you may think i meant that mathematics/science intense majors are ultimately the best, but i meant with the standpoint of a mediocre (3.4 ish gpa). Regardless of the gpa, if its above a 3.0 you spent hours upon hours upon hours studying the content and understanding it.</p>
<p>Now, may it be more of an annoyance if an engineer/mathematics major had to learn arabic? obviously so, but if they put the time they did on their major and focused on that it can be done. Can a person studying history put that time into studying more abstract intensive classes and get it done? good luck, thats why reason why my friend switched from engineering to history, it was easier. I even contemplated switching to business for the same reason</p>