If you ask anyone what their academic goals are heading into college, I’d bet the answer would be to get a 4.0 GPA.
It’s the true marker of collegiate success, right? It means you crushed those hard college courses and not only survived, but thrived with even the worst of professors.
I hate to break it to you, but your college GPA doesn’t matter as much as you want it to. When you submit your resume to potential employers, they’re going to glance at it, make sure you took your studies seriously and move on.
In their eyes, a 3.6 is essentially a 4.0.
Obviously, it’s not a great idea to fail half your classes, but the four years you spend in college are much more than academics. There’s a reason universities offer a million different clubs and activities: so students can be involved.
While I don’t recommend trying to participate in every club on campus, picking two or three to dedicate your time to will not only look good to employers, but help you feel at home in college. Being truly committed to these two or three things will naturally take away from your study time, but it’s a good trade-off. Missing a homework assignment because you coordinated last minute details for the astronomy club’s fundraiser will pay off later.
Another reason college clubs and activities outweigh studying is because of the people you meet and relationships you form. You have to make your friends somewhere, and making them by joining clubs means you already have at least one common interest. The friends you make in college could very well be the ones standing up in your wedding, so in the name of friendship, skip the homework.
Keeping you nose out of a book will not only result in meaningful relationships with your peers, but with others as well. Your favorite club’s advisor could end up being the best mentor you’ll ever have. Unlike assigned academic advisors or individual class professors, getting to know someone like a club advisor has major benefits. More than likely, they’re well-respected professionals and having them write recommendations or give you career advice is great for you. Because clubs are optional, your time investment means much more to them than, for example, the professor teaching a GenEd class who knows that no one wants to take his class.
Maybe most importantly, you have the rest of your life to be responsible. Even if you’re 25 years old, the average American lives to be 78. That means you have about 53 years to go in this world.
Skip class.
Someday, you’ll have a real job and a family.
You can’t skip out on them.
But you can skip out now.
College is this weird in-between stage where you’re an adult but don’t have all the accountability of an adult.
It’s not going to last forever so take advantage of it now.
My point here is not to give college students an excuse to skip every class and never study. My point is that sometimes having a 4.0 means you studied, but did nothing else.
It can mean you set your sight on one specific thing but didn’t use your peripheral vision to look around and enjoy life.
A 4.0 is great, don’t get me wrong. It’s a challenging thing to achieve and those who manage to retain it after four years of college are to be admired. But only if it’s achieved without sacrificing social engagements and other activities.
For me and so many others like me, there’s too much to lose from getting a 4.0 to make it truly worth it.
I’d rather have great friends and memories anyway.
