Grades and Student Travel, Etc

[RogerR]

Originally Posted by phrontist

Really? Other than Google and a few other companies, I have very rarely heard of employers asking for GPA. They usually want transcripts to verify you actually earned a degree, and potentially to check your areas of concentration, but practically no one cares what grades got you that degree. Getting in to graduate school, if you go, is the last time anyone will ask you about your GPA.

it depends very much on the company; so far, all the really desirable ones that i've seen have had a cut-off of 3.0 or higher; grad schools are (largely) the same way, or higher.

after 7 years of FIRST, i've come to a very improtant conclusion:

FIRST, in itself, will not make you an engineer.

while it is an excellent suplement to an engineering education, it won't replace it. what you experience through FIRST is an extremely small idealized part of the engineering world; there is much that FIRST would be hard pressed to teach you. college is what gives you the tools to become a good engineer, and your grades show how well you know how to use those tools.

for what its worth, up until 2 semesters ago, i was one of those "terminal slackers"; my GPA seldom broke 2.5, and after several years of lackluter performance, i was in danger of losing my scholarship. last summer, and fall, i turned in a 3.75+ performance for both semsters. this semester, (for the first time in my life) i'm aiming for straight A's. its not easy, its not always fun, but it is imprtant. your grades and test scores are one of the major ways that companies and schools can evaluate how well you know your stuff. it may be a hard pill to swallow, but sometimes you just have to buckledown and play the game.