Subj : Re: Academic grades should be USELESS
To   : comp.programming
From : Duane Bozarth
Date : Mon Jul 25 2005 04:08 pm

James wrote:
> 
> Duane Bozarth wrote:
> 
> -----------------
> 
> You gave a very good reply to my question.But Sir, if a student is
> getting less grades then you cannot infer that he is not serious about
> his prime job. As Mr Philps has said "he may be lacking the talent to
> play scholastic games".  And what's more, the software firms needs a
> programmer and not someone who is good in cramming and writing the
> crammed answers in the answer booklet.

Well, the hard fact of life is that in that case, simple competition wil
lead to <usually> choosing the candidate w/ the higher GPA.  Is that
<always> necessarily the better candidate?--obviously no, not always. 
However, the class work that was the most influential in making the
decision was the core courses that would tend to indicate a student had
mastered the principles which could then be applied.  The real world for
which I was interviewing wasn't the "cramming and writing answers" type
of job and the courses for which such would be the type of testing
weren't really of interest.  I was looking at the basic math, physics,
engineering and other analytical courses as well as evaluating the
communication skills as exemplified in the basic composition and speech
courses, etc.  As I covered the same campuses for years I got to know
placement personnel and key professors in certain departments.  On
occasion I would get a hint from one of them that a particular student
might not have outstanding grades but was a worthy person to consider
for various reasons...I would rarely turn aside those recommendations
and altho they all didn't get hired, they would get a look.  In those
days, it wasn't quite as competitive as it is now, however, and so the
simple fact is that the grades are going to stay with you like a credit
rating for a long time...you can make up for some of it by excellent
performance but, for example, if you were to want to apply at one of the
National Laboratories, you would probably find it a tough go unless you
had significant outside accomplishments to show such as peer-reviewed
papers or some such.

HTH to at least understand some....good luck, sounds like you're off to
a good start.

.