<p>First, attaining the OP’s GPA would likely have meant more than one F, one D, and/or a spate of Cs. </p>
<p>Second, according to what I’ve heard from many HR colleagues/employers and from that same cousin who is in a position to compare notes with fellow managers at networking events, GPAs are routinely used as a proxy by HR/hiring managers to gauge an entry-level candidate’s level of work-ethic and ability to do things well and on-time. They’d have some serious concerns about those issues with someone with a > 3.0 cumulative GPA. </p>
<p>Only exceptions to this are if they have substantial impressive work experience/internships and/or they meet a more understanding hiring manager like that older cousin. However, even he has admitted that it seems he’s the odd duck among the hiring managers in his field/geographic area.</p>
You certainly have mastered the feat of generalizing your anecdotal experience, which basically amounts to second hand info from your cousin, to the entire job market. All employers are different. I assure you. Sure some emplyers set minimums, many even put it in their “help wanted” requirements. But not all.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if the median GPA for most engineering programs is below 3.0. Unless somebody can show me real data that over 50% of engineering graduates are unemployed or working at Target it defies logic that you need a 3.0 to get hired. Not to mention that I happen to know for a fact it isn’t true. But nobody knows where I work, or my cousin, or my uncle for that matter. So data combined with logic is a ncie idea, though sort of scarce on internet message boards.</p>
<p>Edit-
Now grad school, that’s a different matter. I think it’s tough to find a decent grad school that will admit people with under 3.0.</p>
<p>I’m with Olymom (and I hire for a company that asks all employees for GPA’s, even if it was 20 years ago. If they don’t remember, fine- but we always ask.)</p>
<p>Don’t apply to investment banks (they ask). Don’t apply for engineering jobs (they often ask, but you’re not qualified anyway.) That leaves about 750 different occupations for the OP to explore.</p>
<p>Do not go to grad school. Do not fret about your GPA (nothing you can do about it anyway.) Get yourself a plan for getting launched and move forward.</p>
<p>I had an employer who always liked low GPA’s for salespeople. (not door to door encyclopedias… this was high end, long lead time, big ticket sales.) He said that in his experience, they always felt like they had something to prove given their modest academic achievements, and therefore worked harder and smarter than the A students.</p>
<p>Just get moving. Once you’re employed and working hard and being successful nobody is going to care about your GPA. Avoid the few fields that care (banking, consulting, etc.) and you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>It is true that some things loom large in the moment. Potty training seems like Mount Everest when you’re the only mother at the park with a 2 and 1/2 year old that doesn’t care a thing about “big boy bottoms.” The right college choice seems pivotal to many 18 year olds – even though there are hundreds of excellent choices. And I suppose there may be a day for me when the right gravestone engraving is a big deal. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, we seem to have lost our OP. Here’s hoping he/she is on a path that is alluring and likely to be successful.</p>
<p>“Don’t apply to investment banks (they ask). Don’t apply for engineering jobs (they often ask, but you’re not qualified anyway.) That leaves about 750 different occupations for the OP to explore.”</p>
<p>Come on! Time to get the face out of Campus World! Hie off to the nearest bookseller and browse the magazine rack. Pick up the yellow pages and flip through them. Search Craigslist job listings. Contact your campus placement office. </p>
<p>You are, what, 22 years old and you haven’t yet thought about what you would do at age 23? No ideas whatsoever? For heaven’s sake, please don’t teach school. Public education is too often the refuge of the unimaginative instead of those called to teach. </p>
<p>Sales rep, administrative assistant, account executive (means you keep some clients happy) are typical starter jobs. Pick up a Forbes to see where they say the hot money is going. Visit your state employment website (one friend is a geography major and she got a job at the state’s mapping department). </p>
<p>Start opening your eyes to everyone and everything around you.</p>
<p>I’m with Olymom, in the principle she suggests: if you can’t master college courses, what will make the next program think you can rise to that level of challenges? Grad school is not a lateral move. </p>
<p>BUT, you don’t get into grad school he way you get into college- now, it’s not about maybe this or maybe that field or interst. OP said humanities. You are expected to be on your game, know what you want to study, have some idea of the research topics that interest you. You are supposed to attract the attention of the profs you may work with. To focus in this thread on gpa is to miss the point of a higher education in humanities. And, you should have been speaking with your profs, in depth, by now.</p>
<p>PS. if you are really at a top tier school, go over to the school’s career services dept. If you’re at a second or third tier…go over to career services.</p>
<p>And, the truth is, many, many employers simply don’t ask about gpa. And if they do, assuming your major gpa was better than your overall, you can always state that as an opener. But, you have to be a go-getter. We cannot overempasize that.</p>
<p>If you like to write- Corporate Communications, Media Relations, speechwriter. If you like to write and are interested in finance- Investor Relations. If you like to read- Research Analyst at a Think Tank. If you’re well organized and creative- Event planning. Marketing assistant at a museum or historical society. Development at a non-profit (what they used to call fundraiser.) If you’re good at math and interested in health care- teaching hospitals have an entire department of people who coordinate clinical trials and recruit patients. If you’re good at math and not interested in health care- market research-- ad agency, consumer products company. Government- local, state, federal- every single campaign going on right now has people coordinating communications, analyzing polling data, planning logistics.</p>
<p>Surely you know a grown up or two in the work force? Surely you know someone in their '20’s who got a job out of college without going to grad school? Get off your duff!</p>
<p>Every think tank research position I’ve seen advertised required not only a minimum GPA of well above a 3.0…but also an MA at the very minimum. </p>
<p>Only exceptions I know of are partisan political marketing organizations that most clued-in folks IME wouldn’t dignify by equating them with think tanks.</p>
<p>Agree that think tanks require a pretty high level of intellect and specialized knowledge- and lots there will have PhDs. There are junior level positions, but plenty of competition from young adults who already have the qualifications. And, it’s not really about reading- it’s research, analytical and writing skills, to the max. And, the research often involves people work.</p>
<p>There is no way to list the various job titles. How many of us found our niche by looking by title? You fit yourself to a type of work, a type of organization, a knowledge of your skill sets. Etc.</p>
<p>Cobrat, let’s let the OP become another unemployed college grad holding out for the perfect job, shall we?</p>
<p>I know plenty of young people who have gone to a partisan political organization for a year or two, gotten terrific experience learning how to lobby, how to analyze polling data, how to work with PAC’s, and how to get an issue or set of issues on the agenda for a congressional committee. And many of them had crappy GPA’s from colleges you’ve never heard of.</p>
<p>Boy, the elitists are out of sorts today.</p>
<p>OP- you may never get an interview with Brookings, Council on Foreign Relations, or the Hoover Institute. There are hundreds of other Think Tanks that will never ask for your GPA.</p>
<p>And lookingforward- obviously, there are other skills involved in research work. Could we all try and help this young kid instead of piling it on?</p>
<p>My point is that given the OP’s current GPA, advising him to apply for a research analyst position at a think tank is no different from asking him to apply for other highly competitive jobs with high GPA requirements like organizational consulting or analyst at an ibank…especially considering think tank analyst jobs often require advanced degrees in addition to respectable GPAs.</p>
<p>There are plenty of think tanks who will never ask his GPA. There are think tanks studying infant nutrition, sustainable agriculture, K-12 school reform, consumer credit card fraud, identity theft-- the list goes on. Not every think tank requires a 3.8 from Princeton (although some do) and not every think tank is studying global monetary policy or tracking political movements in Turkey. </p>
<p>but we have no idea if the OP even wants to work at a think tank- my point was just that there are hundreds of occupations where a low GPA is neither a deal-breaker nor even relevant- since the employer won’t even ask.</p>
<p>Blossom, sometimes, what comes through about an OP is telling. The concerns about a 2.6 vs 2.9, five years of college, etc. The idea grad school is a possibility…without any ideas, discussions with profs, etc. The question about “what occupations” suggests he hasn’t been to career services or explored much. Sometimes, the fairest thing is to steer kids in appropriate ways. Eg, many consumer product companies hire entry levels for brand work. Sales is a great leveller and can yield big bucks. You don’t walk into writing jobs without writing skills- not just the ability, but they ability to conform your writing to a business’s or organization’s needs. We don’t know OP’s “hidden strengths” or experiences. There is no better advice we can give on this thread than to find the energy to get over to career services at his college, use ther resources. Uness he has substantial family connections.</p>
<p>Just checking, if I graduate now, my chance of ever going into a respectable grad school is slim right? Because they only look at your GPA of your first Bachelor’s degree, not the GPA you have after your second major when you return later in life to get a better GPA?</p>
<p>Also I heard something to the effect that you should be attending school to apply for grad school because it’s better to apply as a student than as someone just bumming around, is this true?</p>
<p>You would be better suited to take an extra year and bring your GPA up now.</p>
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<p>No, it’s not. Many, many students take a year or more in between undergrad and grad school - pursuing internships, jobs, whatever. If you spend that entire year “just bumming around” it’s not going to help you, because you’re going to have a year of nothing on your resume. But if you spend that year doing a research internship or get a job related to your intended graduate field of study, that’s going to be a plus on your application.</p>
<p>The thought that the OP might have failed courses, or have multiple D grades seems off to me. A grade of B- is a 2.67 many places. By my calculations, if a student took 32 courses to graduate, had 31 grades of B- and one C, he would be rounding <em>up</em> to 2.65. If A grades are not easy for the OP to come by (which can happen), there’s not much reason to assume grades below C-. Only on CC can one generally assume that a GPA that starts with 2 is a typo. The average GPA at the university where I work is about 2.85, and our grads find employment.</p>
<p>With respect to grad school, though, a student with a sub-3.0 undergrad GPA cannot normally be admitted. There is a possibility of a provisional admit, if for some reason the department really wants the person. A student with a 2.9 GPA would have some chance of a provisional admit, while a student with a 2.6 would have severely reduced chances, nearly zero. The university would not pay any attention to the difference between four and five years.</p>