College students notoriously obsess over good grades. I remember the shock I had when I heard college professors and peers saying: “Don’t worry too much about your grades.” As many times as I heard it, I never felt convinced. I continued stressing myself to points of complete exhaustion, working to prove that I was "smart." We spend so much time being concerned with grades, but what are we actually stressing for? Let’s consider, do employers even care? As I sat in one of my honors courses about issues in higher education, I finally found relief to these questions.
An assigned reading led me to discover what employers find most important. To my astonishment, a great deal of employers did not find transcripts to be useful. In the Association of American Colleges & Universities’ (ACCU) research and presentation, they found that at least 45 percent of employers find transcripts fairly useful, whereas only 9 percent found them very useful. On the other hand, at least 80 percent of employers found a digital portfolio fairly useful, and 36 percent found it very useful.
Additionally, grades have become inflated. The "A" is the most popularly awarded grade at universities, coming in with 43 percent of all grades inputted, when it was only awarded 30 percent of the time over 20 years ago. This makes it even harder for employers to determine capabilities in today's job market.
I spent my entire first year of college guessing what skills my future employer would want me to possess. My teachers always told me it wasn’t just about grades, but they didn't clarify what that meant. It’s easy to say that, but without a tangible idea or evidence, it was hard for me to understand that line of thinking. To my astonishment, the AACU revealed that the top skill employers seek is oral communication, followed by the ability to work within groups and in third is written communication. The top three desirable skills to employers are all communication-related skills.
I am not saying that grades do not matter for everyone. If you want to get into grad or professional school, your grades will be a factor. They do matter in those circumstances, but after a certain point, a person has achieved the threshold that is close enough to desirable. My favorite description of thresholds comes from Malcom Gladwell’s book "The Outliers." The book details this concept by analyzing that even though great NBA players are tall, they do not need to be 7 feet tall in order to be great. NBA players need to pass a certain height in order to have a chance at being successful, but greatness is not determined by height, it is determined by the ability to work within the moment.
It’s really easy for us to get down after failing a test. It’s easy to simply give up, but the facts show that you do not need perfect grades to get the job you want. This doesn’t mean you should slack off on your grades, but it means you should focus on improving specific skills, not just grades.
Being smart is not defined by Blackboard, it is defined by the way you can diagnose situations, listen to others and communicate with them.
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To be happy or not to be happy; that is the question.
Reach the columnist at jarwood@asu.edu or follow @jimsthebeast on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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