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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2005 > November > 23
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
College grades don’t matter
Last spring, a close friend about my age (37) asked me to critique her resume. She is a talented journalist who has a truckload of prestigious awards and so many accomplishments it was a challenge to keep it all from growing beyond a few pages.
Under her college degree, I noticed she listed that she had graduated college magna cum laude with a 4.0 grade point average. One of my first suggestions was to drop this line and instead use the space for her professional accomplishments. Sorry, I told her, but at this point in our lives nobody cares about our grades in college.
“I was afraid you were going to tell me that,” the friend said. “I really like to keep that on there. I think it says something about me that I took college seriously, worked hard and didn’t just goof off.”
I was thinking about this conversation as I was reading this excellent blog post by Ramit Sethi in which he argues an obsession with grades while in college is both unhealthy and missing the point of higher education. If you know someone in college or headed there, insist that they read this post.
Stanford educated entrepreneur Ramit writes a great blog aimed at recent college graduates cleverly named I will teach you to be rich. It’s always a good read with good advice that I’ve referenced here before, including his tip for how to apply to colleges for free. Here he writes that it’s just as important for college students to meet people, build relationships and learn new things both inside and outside the classroom as it is to get high grades.
Except for maybe your first job, no one will ever hire you based on your grades, he says.
This is not to say the classwork is not important. You must learn the skills the professors are teaching. And my friend is right that “personal growth” is not an excuse for flat goofing off. There is many a college class I’d like to retake now so I could better learn the material I didn’t work hard enough to learn back then. And working hard in college is a good predictor that you will work hard later in life, as my friend’s accomplishments demonstrate.
But college also is a time to expand your horizons. Those who spend four years narrowly focused on taking the classes that will help them ensure they get straight As are missing out.
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