[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

... I recommend that you never let schools and grades get in the way of getting an education.

Very little of what I use on a daily basis in my career are things I learned in my formal education, but when I was young I developed a passion for learning that has stood me in good stead during 23 years in the high-tech industry. Learning to learn on my own and writing clearly are the two most important results of my early education. The content of what I learned in high school and college has largely been made obsolete since I graduated, but thinking and learning never go out of style.

As for grades, the less said the better. Grades are a bizarre artifact of the educational industry that ought to be eliminated -- and the sooner the better. I have a whole rant that I do on the subject, but let's just say that the older I get, the less sense they make to me. (And for the record, I had good grades in school. This isn't sour grapes.)

Rick, I'd guess that you and I are of about the same educational vintage. I concur with all of what you said above.

Early in my engineering career I got involved in the college recruiting team for my first post-college employer, in the defense sector of TRW in southern California. Although Kim's experiences in that kind of activity are more recent than mine, her posts (above here and elsewhere) show me that not much has changed. Grades are still used as a primary screen when evaluating entry-level candidates for engineering positions. So Kim and others are correct to caution all college students not to let their grades slip. [My own experience with college grades is remarkably similar to Kim's, although my extracurricular activities were different.]

All that said about grades, Rick's points are more important in the long run. The ability to learn on your own and to communicate ideas effectively are the most important skills -- they are elements of that most prized of team members, the self-starter.

Sometime during your career, a fundamental technological change, a global political trend, or a strategic business decision will very likely create a shift in the demand for people with your skill-set (whatever it may be!), and when that happens you will fare much better if you are one of the self-starters.