Do you think the vast audience here consists of graduates who have long since graduated and entered their career 5 years ago, and are now coming to this website for advice on their next move? No. The people who do fit this category are the ones GIVING the advice, not seeking. The general audience (and pretty much ALL advice-seekers) here consist of people (students or not, graduates or not) who have yet to enter the workforce, and by workforce I mean their lifetime career, not a temporary job at Starbucks. What does this mean? This means that GPA does matter, because almost everyone here is still in that stage of finding a suitable career. </p>
<p>This ALSO means that, for the most part, Enginox’s (& yours) comment does not fit the general scope of this forum. Sure, individual threads can be about whatever the author so chooses, so you can expand your scope to whatever you want. But given your context, no, these comments don’t fit for the general audience here.</p>
<p>Well for one, after your first job, if you are applying for another entry-level job, you have some more serious issues to worry about. For two, your experience will still trump all.</p>
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<p>How does that have anything to to with the issue at hand? You tried to call someone out for giving the advice that once you get out into the workforce, their GPA will no longer matter. That advice is relevant to students and graduates alike, and given that fact, I fail to see the point of your argument here.</p>
Please point me in the right direction, I must be lost, I am sorry.</p>
<p>(I’m responding with the assumption that by your (boneh3ad) comment of (no pun intended), “once you get out into the workforce,” you do certainly mean “after you have already gotten your foot in the door at your first job.” If, however, you mean exactly what you said, then you are already wrong altogether.)
At this point… I fail to see the point in your argument. I do agree with your comments prior to this debate, however.</p>
<p>Hayz650 said that those individuals were able to obtain college degrees. We can safely assume that 1) their minimum GPA is 2.0, unless some universities graduate students at lower GPAs and 2) those universities vouch for that graduate as being satisfactory, regardless of their major.</p>
<p>I do not know what you consider a “low GPA” since you never mentioned it but I will safely assume anything below 3.5 is low to you (basically, a B student); myself, anything below 3.0 is low (a C+ student). Once again, GPA is not everything; there’s also major, letters of recommendation, performance during internships, etc. Your mistake lay in assuming those college graduates working in a coffee shop are automatically “failures.” </p>
<p>In any case, I’m certain you are familiar with people with less-than-stellar GPAs that have managed to obtain very lucrative and/or prestigious positions. A solid personal connection might be more effective than a high GPA, in certain cases. In some very specific cases, the name of the person that instructed you is far more beneficial than your final GPA (think being a physicist with a 3.4 GPA that somehow was mentored by Edward Witten).</p>
<p>@AMT:</p>
<p>Fact: you are better trained, better educated, better studied, and more brilliant than me. You are a CS graduate while I’m a humble undergrad that will be taking his first Calculus class very soon. I prefer pitting myself against better people than me because the likely failure and embarrassment helps me learn more; any success I have had in life only leads to people coming to me for assistance or dumping their problems on me. </p>
<p>@Hayz650:</p>
<p>The last person you should be impressed by is me. Take anything I say with a grain of salt and pay more attention to other individuals in these subforums that have successfully completed their college programs. </p>
<p>Most of what I express here comes from my experience and the experience of others (hint: I’m over 24). Many of my friends became engineers, doctors, and lawyers; several from prestigious institutions. Most have a similar background to mine and in many cases attended the same private high school. The majority expected me to succeed, just like them, but now only see me as an under-underachiever that threw away his future.</p>
<p>“Does a personal example also require an explanation/excuse that you didn’t “really try” in high school?”
No, but it gives background, and I think a lot of people don’t try in high school that are smart. AGAIN, stop thinking of JUST one solution! There are A LOT of reasons why people don’t get good grades, I’m just giving my reason. You are really close minded and it’s annoying/hard to have a conversation with you.</p>
Point taken. I will still say, however, that I would bet money on that if you were to survey these graduates in these sales positions being mentioned, their GPA would certainly be lower, and that’s the take-home point. Low, to you, high to him, middle to her, whatever it may be, it would be lower in comparison to different (higher, better, more secure, etc. - insert adj. here) positions - regardless of major.
I don’t think this is necessarily true. It’s simply a marketing technique, which they must sell in order to get money (win students).</p>
<hr>
<p>hayz650, I apologize. I tend to refer to anyone I don’t know, including hypotheticals (such as when using “someone,” “everyone,” etc.) as “he” & the likes, since it’s pretty standard - and using “their” would be grammatically incorrect, while using him/her is just redundant. No hard feelings? :)</p>
<p>haha if you would like to elaborate I would appreciate it.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter, I don’t know your background, and I don’t know the background of the other people here. That is the beauty of forums. It’s pretty straight forward. I am impressed by you, not by what you have accomplished, but by your thoughts and opinions. When we die, it doesn’t matter what you have accomplished or if you got the right degree, but what kind of individual you are. That’s what I’m impressed with.</p>
<p>“those universities vouch for that graduate as being satisfactory, regardless of their major.”</p>
<p>Yeah I also disagree, some universities baby their students through so that they can have a good graduate rate, believe it or not, the system is corrupt.</p>
<p>It is completely unreasonable to think that no one will make mistakes. I find that when people bring up exceptions or unusual cases to the argument, they’re simply looking for a way out. Exceptions are not the norm, that’s why they are exceptions. A student going to college with the intent of being an art history major and getting a job that pays $50 K out of college is undoubtedly absurd; it is very clear that this person did not think their future out very well, if at all. Or the girl in the news article that was posted some time ago in the parent’s forum, she took out 200 grand in loans for NYU as a woman’s studies major. It is very clear that people who do these sort of things have not thought about their future at all. We’re not talking about this one guy you know that was an engineer and [supposedly] did everything right and is now a sale’s clerk.</p>
<p>I never said it’s impossible for smart people to make mistakes. If you’re smart with your planning in life, the probability of making mistakes goes down by a lot. In this case, being smart doesn’t mean being high school valedictorian, it simply means that you make smart choices by giving your future (which will arguably govern the direction your life takes) a thought and maybe even another thought.</p>
<p>I don’t know why you would think I’m trying to be better than everyone else. I never explicitly said that I’m incredibly smart and I’ve made incredibly great decisions in my life and I’m going to MIT because I made a 4.7 GPA and made a perfect score on the SAT; I’ve made my fair share of stupid mistakes. Thankfully, I’ve made them before it truly matters, and I have time to correct them. But this topic isn’t about me or about you, it’s about the people who make bad decisions because they don’t think.</p>
<p>Hazydazy or whatever your name is (I’m typing in quick reply so I can’t look back a page), you are making absurd assumptions. To me, AMT extracted a far more rational meaning from my posts than you did, if you take the time to rid yourself of these predispositions because of what I think, you might find that you’ll come up with more rational evaluations as well.</p>
<p>EDIT: Holy cow, I posted this message and it pops up… along with 10 brand new posts. This is intense…</p>
<p>You have made a stronger case and you force me to admit that, yes, I expect a significant portion of those coffee shop workers to have a weaker work ethic than comparable engineers and scientists. </p>
<p>Regarding your second point, I think you and I both hope that anyone walking around with a college diploma will perform satisfactorily. I know this is not the case but this is the one instance where I choose to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.</p>
<p>@Hayz650:</p>
<p>One thing many of us need to understand is that no matter the profession, there will be an “inner circle” of people that consider themselves “superior” to others, even those within their profession, regardless of what the facts actually show (even within that inner circle, there’s ANOTHER inner circle, and ANOTHER, and so on…).</p>
<p>Math and science types suffer from this, just like any other, because of the quantitative skills they obtain. Luckily, math and science types are not THAT bad when compared to other groups (art people are actually more arrogant than technical people, ime); try hanging out with certain lawyer types if you want to feel like a worthless, insignificant human being. Another thing math and science types fail to realize is that lawyers are actually smarter than them for one simple reason: lawyers make the rules. And I actually HATE that.</p>
<p>I just have to point this out for future debaters, not on topic in any way in terms of the current debate(s):
Oh how true this is! I hate it and find it absolutely absurd whenever people try to argue the exception. Quite a useless argument that can turn a meaningful debate into an impasse. Take this point home, ladies and gentlemen, for any future encounters.</p>
<p>On your last bit about lawyers: I couldn’t care less about the rules. All I care about is doing what I love and want to do, let the power hungry fools kick, claw, and bite each other to get to the top. It’s a sad way to live life in my opinion.</p>
<p>^ These guys who are kicking and clawing their way through, are doing so for **you<a href=“for%20the%20most%20part%20:P”>/b</a>. They’re doing it so that YOU don’t have to. They hold this position so that they can represent you, a person who does not hold this position (them doing this is analogous to them being your second brain).</p>
<p>But you should care about the rules because they will affect you whether you like it or not. This is an area where more scientists and engineers must get involved if we want policy to be shaped in a scientific, rational manner.</p>
<p>The world has too many lawyers (and their most evil specialization: politicians). Every student that fails a science or engineering program is a potential frustrated lawyer or businessperson that will use their knowledge to mess things up even further.</p>
<p>This is why I encourage people to follow technical careers. Natural ability is not the only factor that determines success in a technical program. I firmly believe that if more Americans had a better science and math education we wouldn’t be experiencing many of the problems we are experiencing today.</p>
<p>“hayz650, I apologize. I tend to refer to anyone I don’t know, including hypotheticals (such as when using “someone,” “everyone,” etc.) as “he” & the likes, since it’s pretty standard - and using “their” would be grammatically incorrect, while using him/her is just redundant. No hard feelings?”</p>
<p>Definitely no hard feelings Engineerhead. It’s totally fine. I do the exact same thing. Plus not many women are into engineering.</p>
<p>“Or the girl in the news article that was posted some time ago in the parent’s forum, she took out 200 grand in loans for NYU as a woman’s studies major.”</p>
<p>Yeah she’s dumb, but so are the idiots who gave her the loan. It doesn’t depend on one thing. Please try to understand this.</p>
<p>@ Hadsed
I can be rational. Most of the time I am. I think my opinions are more rational that yours are, which is exactly my point. I’m not making absurd assumptions, I may be over-reacting to them, but it is what I take from your comments, me personally… some people may see it differently, like AMT, and that’s fine with me, if we all thought the same, life would be boring. I’m just trying to challenge you.</p>
<p>Sure, I’ll tell a short story about me that will tie into the topic’s main premise. I became interested in science from an early age; I’ve been always fascinated by magnets, electricity, and cosmology. Growing up, Albert Einstein was my personal hero.</p>
<p>My father was a doctor and my mother an economist. They always encouraged me to learn for the sake of learning. They thought I’d become a doctor as well but I told them I’d rather be a scientist; their “advice” was that it was more beneficial to focus on something practical and I chose engineering since it allowed me to keep some ties to science. Of course, I decided high school was for fun, not learning, hurt my grades, and in the end did nothing with my life. Meanwhile, my buddies (some of them less capable than me) became professionals in many fields, including engineering.</p>
<p>Now, after obtaining some responsibilities (read: my own very small family) I decided to return to university. My father, who still “advises” me, still recommends something practical but this time because I don’t have the benefit of younger years (what a jerk, eh?). So far, doing great; the physics department chair actually enrolled me in a joint calculus-physics class well before I took a precalculus class so at least someone else besides me thinks I can perform satisfactorily in those courses.</p>