chronically low gpa

[auddie]

My first two and a half years of school were really rough. I ended up having to take a year off to handle some personal issues. Fortunately, I have all that stuff under control now, and my grades are way up. However, the damage to my college gpa is already done. I have about 50 credits at a gpa of 1.9, and almost 30 credits from AP tests. I just finished my first semester back and got a 3.5, but even if i maintain that until I finish my degree, I'll graduate with about a 2.6.

Has anyone else dealt with a similar situation? What do I do next? Will employers factor the stark contrast in my favor? Do I need to get a post-bacc (will that even help?)? Expounding on my personal troubles surely won't get me far in a job interview, so how do I even explain the grade difference if it comes up? How do I get into graduate school in the future? Please help.

[BluePeople]

Hey Auddie,

I actually just graduated and had a similar experience only I started off good and finished bad. My first two years I maintained a 4.0 GPA while working about 60 hours a week at the same time. Then for some reason I lost all motivation and struggled to to get C's. I went from an attitude of getting a B is unacceptable to I really don't even care if I get a C or graduate. Somehow I did manage to pull through and graduate with a beaten down GPA.

I'm no expert but from what I have gathered you do have an advantage by having your bad years early on. Showing improvement in your grades looks much better not only to employers but to potential graduate schools than showing a decline in grades like I had. As far as how you explain it is something you should really think hard about long before being asked by an interviewer. I say that because I think the last thing you want to do is show a potential employer that you have had periods of instability that caused a couple years of poor performance at school. Their fear of course is that you might repeat your first years at college at your job and your work performance might suffer. I can't say for sure what you should tell them, but maybe something along the lines of you went to college straight from high school just because you thought that was what you were supposed to do. You didn't know what you wanted to do yet or what you wanted to study but then you discovered what you wanted to do and once you had direction you were motivated to do it right. I think that's actually a pretty common scenario for a lot of students.

I think how important your GPA was really depends also what your major is and what you want to do. From my research and knowing people that took different paths in many areas I could expand on this a lot and get a lot more detailed, but basically I think it boils down to this.... Generally for your average liberal arts type student looking for an average 9-5 job gpa doesn't really matter and most likely won't even be asked in an interview. Contrast to that would be technical jobs such as engineering or accounting. The reason for that is simply your grades should directly reflect your knowledge in engineering or accounting. That's different than say a journalism major's grades. Also if you are looking for a career in a field that has a "best of the best" type mentality GPA matters a lot. Investment banking and to a lesser extend law firms and the medical field (for doctors specifically) fall into this area.

As far as a post-bacc program it is dependant of course on your major and graduate program of choice, but joining clubs in your field and especially if you can attain leadership positions within those clubs should help. Volunteer work can be good too but it's value really depends on your program. For example if you are looking to be a psychologist or social worker, volunteering to work with mental health patients would probably be more helpful than an engineer major who volunteers at a soup kitchen.

[auddie]

Thanks for the input. I'm an international affairs major, and I eventually want to be a historian. That means I need a phd at a competitive school, eventually. I want to work for a while after college, but for it to really be useful it needs to be related to my prospective field, and I don't know how I would manage that.

On a related note, I haven't located a single internship in my field that I even qualify to apply for. :'(