Is gpa everything?

What is the question?

As someone older (but not too much) and as someone who has always had to work her ass off to get good grades, I get why you’re frustrated. There are two things I have learned in school (and this goes for high school, college and now graduate school). The first thing is: Ask for help. Sure, some people are geniuses and can get straight A’s without even batting an eye. But most of us aren’t like that. Most of us have to work hard, and fail at our attempts to learn anything. If you are putting in long hours to try to understand the material, and you still can’t manage the grades you want, it is time to ask for help.

The second thing I have learned, I’ve only learned in the past year. It is: Who cares what “everybody” else is doing? So your best friend is in three sports, all AP courses and has a 4.0. So what? That is not your life. Deal with your own issues, and conquer your own battles, and stop worrying that others are ahead of you or are doing better than you. It isn’t worth it, and it will only make it harder for you to succeed in the long run.

Yeah, GPA is pretty much everything. The only thing that makes up for it is SAT scores, but you don’t have those either. The difference is that you can work on your SAT score, take pretests and work on areas you need help with, and raise that. You can’t do that for your GPA.

P.S. Not everyone is from California and not everyone gets the acronyms you’re using. I had to Google to figure out the “CSU“s and so on because its not a common acronym for my side of the country.

California isn’t everybody’s dream state? You people don’t hang maps of California above your beds for sweet dreams? That’s weird.

If you were lucky enough to head off to a CSU (which one?) with all of the overcrowding and budget issues, congratulations. I suggest you try really hard to not fuck up.

Worry primarily about learning the material, and only worry about GPA after that. But if you’re having an issue, don’t be afraid to find help. There are clubs out there for every subject, and there are millions of websites about everything and anything.

@Les thanks! that’s really helpful.

@SassyPink – I hope so. I don’t want to sound patronizing or blunt, but that is the best advice I can give. And I know people always tell you “ask for help”, but really, that is the best way. Especially now that you’re in college, often you will be in large classes and you are just another face in the crowd. When I was in college, I struggled with my second semester of physics. I went to the prof’s office hours every week, and he knew me by name. He knew that I was working really hard on the material, I was just not comprehending. Sometimes, after he and I would meet, he’d go over the material again in class because he realized he didn’t explain it well enough. And at the very least, he knew I was putting forth the effort, and not just slacking off on the assignments.

Another thing I thought of: It is OK to go and talk to you prof and just say “I don’t understand.” Sometimes, I can’t explain why I don’t understand something, I just don’t get it. The two of you can sit down together and hammer it out to figure where the disconnect is. Also, if at all possible, re-explain it to your instructor. Teaching the material is the best way to learn it. So if you go to office hours and get a mini lesson, ask the instructor if you could summarize what you just learned before you leave. This is a great way to see if you really understood it the way the teacher wanted you to.

Good luck!

@avvooooooo So Sorry about that. I though i should be more specific…

whether in california or not… i’m just being general about universities and success itself

It depends on your goal. If you want to get the best education possible and learn as much as you can in preparation for the rest of your life, the GPA is an excellent scorecard to show your progress.

If you are just trying to get a “degree” because it sounds like the right thing to do, it doesn’t really matter.

It has gotten so bad that some people are cheating by buying their “degrees” from
fake colleges. I have read that employers are actually checking the school records of prospective employees for the higher paying jobs.

I’m just adding here. You have to figure your life out, from an adult point of view, now that your hitting university. But I’d be grateful if I even got into one. So good for you. I guess you can say that now you have a second chance in life. Just keep your goals, and the sacrifices needed to get to them, constantly in focus.

GPA is not the only indicator of success. There are a lot of factors.

But one of the things that is important in success is setting a goal and working towards it. If GPA is important for something you want—such as graduate school, or a teaching certification, or a scholarship—then you need to manage your time and set your priorities so that you’re getting the GPA you need.

Nope. GPA is way overrated. It may help with getting into schools, but do you really want to be in a school that only looks at GPA or test scores? I’d rather go somewhere where they look at me as a person.

And after school, unless you go to a professional school, GPA matters little. Even at professional schools it only matters in the first job, if at all.

Don’t buy into the score system. Tests are poor measures of a human being, and if you study for tests and GPA, you are not really preparing yourself for life.

Learn because you love what you’re learning. Not as a step towards a big income or something like that. You will be much better prepared for life if you do what you want to do, rather than doing what someone else tells you is lucrative. Money is important, but pursuing it can lead you far away from yourself. Is it really worth it?

You can do well no matter what school you go to. You can get a great education at most any college, especially if you work hard. In the end, it’s your reputation that matters, not the reputation of your school.