jsg@rlgvax.UUCP (Jeff Grunewald) (04/26/84)
>> Ed Arnold (csu-cs!arnold) >> >>Why then does anyone go to school? No, let me guess; to get an education? >>If this were indeed so there would be no need for grades. I find it difficult >>to equate education with college. >> . >> . >> . >>I rather think that we're in college to be trained for a job. Of course people go to school to get an education. Why else would anybody spend that kind of money? Surely not only for the partying and fun times. But don't you think that education also includes how to manage yourself and your time? Don't you think that besides being trained for a job, we're being train to handle the little "curves that life throws our way?" School *is* an education. It's a total education. This includes doing your work and having a good time. If you only work, to the exclusion of having fun, then you are not getting a "total" education. If you only party, then too, you are not getting a "total" education. Unfortunately, grades are an evil that we all have to learn to live with, but we don't have to like it. >>What is ironic is that companies support this narrowness of mind by only >>interviewing people with a GPA greater than some number. > Robert DeBenedictis > >After your first job they don't care about the grades you got when you >were an undergraduate. (Am I right?) Sure some companies "support this narrowness of mind" (what language is that phrase anyway :)?), but that is their right. When I was interviewing for jobs during my senior year (several years ago) only one company had a QPA requirement to interview with them. Of the more than 25 interviews I had, only two or three companies asked to view my transcript. What does this show? I think it shows that companies are aware that a prospect can learn plenty, without neccessarily getting the top grades. How a prospect presents himself, communicates, etc. are just as important as how many A's he/she got. After all, to get through four years of college, you have to have learned something. >My vacations from school were "real world" work. School was a >vacation. While at school I perfected the fine art of vacationing. I >learned how to truly enjoy the company of my friends. I learned how to >have fun. I did all those things that you would make you feel like a >fool if you did them in the "real world." College is not the real world. >College should be fun. Your vacations may have included "real world" work, but you were not living in the real world. You still had school to fall back on. You only had to put up with the "real world" for a few months before going back to what you admit is not the real world. Learning how to have fun, and enjoy your friends is very important. These are things you will have to do, and cherish the short times you have to do them, when you get out of school. Remember you only get a very short time away from work. While in school you get several months away from "the job" to do what you wanted. >I guess I'm just trying to justify or figure out how I was able to >land such a nice job with such shitty grades. Grades aren't everthing, and after you get that first job, really don't mean too much anyway. Sometimes I wish I were a full time student again (but not often). Jeff Grunewald [seismo, mcnc, allegra]!rlgvax!jsg --------- The opinions stated above are my own and not neccessarily those of my employer, Computer Consoles Inc., or my associates.