How much do you think an engineering major’s GPA matters a) for finding an internship, b) for finding your first engineering job, c) a software/finance/etc. job or d) for graduate school in engineering?
It’s not particularly related to my situation, just curious.
It’s moderately important in all cases, and the higher the better. There are a few hard cutoffs for various companies and schools (3.0/3.5/3.8 are probably the most standard) and in general, the higher the better. A good GPA is valuable (not strictly necessary but extremely helpful) but not sufficient for all of those things. It’s a good thing to have a higher GPA, but experience, research, useful clubs and honors, etc., are as important to distinguish yourself.
When I worked in big aerospace we had definite GPA cutoffs. For a job in engineering a 3.0 GPA was the minimum. Anything less and your application was round filed. For internships, the advertised GPA was 3.3 but we’d get so many applicants that the true GPA cutoff was usually 3.5.