Will a 2.5 GPA in college seriously hamper my chances of getting a CS/IS/IT job?

[GodlessAstronomer]

Originally posted by: LW07
my main problem is my Calculus course, as the professor(as he himself admitted and i found out today) makes his tests EXTREMELY hard. I studied for it 3 hours the night before, not to mention my working on the homework, and still didn't do as well as I'd have liked.

Many universities (so I've heard) use first year calculus as a way to weed out students who can't handle the full degree. This was certainly the case in my first year calculus courses - they were freaking hard man, I have no problem admitting that I had a rough time with them. Stick with it, seriously, in this type of degree there is no reason you'll need to continue further with calc. When you get to your second year you'll look back on yourself doing Calc I & II and laugh and thank your lucky stars you never have to do it again.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: Deeko

If it comes down to an interview, I'd hope the interviewer is capable of asking more relevant questions than "what was your GPA".

Also, OP, get an internship. Someone with a decent internship and a 2.5 will be by far a more productive than someone with no internship and a 3.5. Virtually every time.

You forget that in this job market, HR shifts through a stack of resumes just to narrow it down to who they are even going to interview.

Yep. If you had asked me this question several years ago, I would have said nah, you'll be fine (IT, specifically though). These days, that GPA is going to carry some weight, especially with no experience.

He has only just started college. In 4 years the job market will (hopefully) have bounced back.

 

[Deeko]

Yea - people told me the same thing when I went to college. I graduated high school in 2002, just after the dot com bust - people told me I was crazy to be majoring in computer science at the time. Things change quickly.

 

[vshah]

didn't matter one bit for me. had 4 offers

 

[timosyy]

Internships, internships, internships.

I'm graduating with Business Information Technology in the Spring (we do like... project development/management, process improvement kind of stuff) with a 3.8 and what's hurting me right now is not having recent work (internship) experience. I do have some, and it's nice because I used ColdFusion/MySQL in it, but that was a few years ago. I feel like if I had junior-year internship experience I'd be a shoe-in to almost any of the companies (consulting mainly) I'm looking at right now (along with the GPA).

I know a few classmates with GPAs < 3.0 (or barely above it) who interned over the summer and got job offers from those.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Once you have a few years experience nothing will be more meaningless than your GPA in college.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: LW07
my main problem is my Calculus course, as the professor(as he himself admitted and i found out today) makes his tests EXTREMELY hard. I studied for it 3 hours the night before, not to mention my working on the homework, and still didn't do as well as I'd have liked.

Ahhh, so you waited until the night before to learn the material. That explains it.

 

[Kirby]

Keep your GPA high enough where you can get a decent internship.

 

[DrPizza]

ooops, how'd that post get into the wrong thread?

 

[Kirby]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
ooops, how'd that post get into the wrong thread?

i read it and was like wtf, is he seriously suggesting gambling instead of college? :laugh:

 

[LW07]

The tests in my World Civ class(we have a 20 point quiz every week) are also pretty rough seeing how the professor likes to put obscure stuff on it(and yes I do read the chapters).

 

[Mo0o]

How are you doing in comparison to other students. Regardless of how hard you think the tests are, you need to compare your performance to others. If others are doign just fine, you should reevaluate how you're studying

 

[jersiq]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: LW07
my main problem is my Calculus course, as the professor(as he himself admitted and i found out today) makes his tests EXTREMELY hard. I studied for it 3 hours the night before, not to mention my working on the homework, and still didn't do as well as I'd have liked.

Ahhh, so you waited until the night before to learn the material. That explains it.

Dude, what has happened to you? Did your favorite goat die or something?
I used to enjoy your posts, but lately you have been spouting inane nonsense.

I am not quite sure, given the bolded part in the quote how you can infer he procrastinated learning the material.


OP, don't get discouraged from your first tests in Freshman year. Most likely you will just have to learn to adjust to new teaching styles and develop more effective study habits. Give it some time, and most importantly EFFORT.

 

[arcenite]

INTERNSHIPS INTERNSHIPS INTERNSHIPS

 

[Jumpem]

Yes. Where I work they won't even look at a resume with a GPA below 3.0.

 

[alkemyst]

how many of you above ever had your parents on campus for any academic need (registration, grade, etc)? Probably most I bet.

 

[Ronstang]

They have dumbed school down so much over the last few decades that there is no excuse for a 2.5 GPA unless you are too lazy to do the simple work.

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: Ronstang
They have dumbed school down so much over the last few decades that there is no excuse for a 2.5 GPA unless you are too lazy to do the simple work.

This is true. For me getting a 3.7 or so depended entirely on not being lazy, anything above that meant you had to be highly organized (to remember all due dates, test dates, retake opportunities, extra credit, etc.) and have a little bit of luck. Of course I was a liberal arts major but I found this to be true with math and science courses as well. I just winged it, didn't keep a schedule of due dates and showed up to class mostly doodling. I did little to none of the assigned reading. Got around a 3.5 for the final two years.

edit: I do understand that a chemical engineering major will have a different experience.

 

[alkemyst]

retake opportunities? WTF?

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
retake opportunities? WTF?

Now that I think about it I don't think I had those. What I meant was random point opportunities professors sometimes (rarely) mentioned during class but weren't in the syllabus, so if you missed class that day you missed the points. So for a retake that might be 'I poorly worded the question on the last assignment, for students who thought it meant such and such you can complete an answer to this question to replace the grade.'

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: LW07
The tests in my World Civ class(we have a 20 point quiz every week) are also pretty rough seeing how the professor likes to put obscure stuff on it(and yes I do read the chapters).

Reading the course material and doing the homework assigned is the minimum, or at least it was according to my professors. You may find that you have to treat your schooling like a job and work 40+ hours per week on the material.

College is more about learning to learn, learning to think, learning to know what you don't know, and learning to manage your affairs than it is learning to find the area under some horrendously obscure curve.

Also, for calculus, may I recommend this book and this book?

 

[LW07]

My calculus class is a business calculus course that uses this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Applied-...-Hallett/dp/0471681210

Also, why is it that the examples shown in math textbooks never help you on the homework when you need it most?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: LW07
My calculus class is a business calculus course that uses this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Applied-...-Hallett/dp/0471681210

Also, why is it that the examples shown in math textbooks never help you on the homework when you need it most?

Well, the things I liked are supplements. The first one, especially. There's really not any reason to avoid buying it.

As for the textbook and the problems? I don't know.

 

[KentState]

IT jobs are all about experience. You will need some type of internship while in school or know someone that needs a help desk technician. After a couple years, it doesn't matter if you show an abilities.

To whomever said that you need a degree for any decent IT job, that is plain not true. I've worked with over a dozen different people that are easily in six figures holding jobs up to director without any degree. Maybe it was just easier for those of us that go into IT before the internet boom to advance.

 

[Imdmn04]

Originally posted by: KentState
IT jobs are all about experience. You will need some type of internship while in school or know someone that needs a help desk technician. After a couple years, it doesn't matter if you show an abilities.

To whomever said that you need a degree for any decent IT job, that is plain not true. I've worked with over a dozen different people that are easily in six figures holding jobs up to director without any degree. Maybe it was just easier for those of us that go into IT before the internet boom to advance.

Not going to happen in this day and age without at least a Bachelors' to make it into a director level position at a Fortune 500 company. Shit, most of them require MBAs nowadays.

If you made it into senior management level position without a degree, good for you, you are the exception, not the rule, especially in this day and age and this economy. Don't mislead the naive kids here by giving them false hope. For every Bill Gates, there is 1 million burger flippers that thinks they can make it just like him.