How much do you value education vs. GPA?

I'd love to study something that was a bit more exploratory and STEM related than finance, but the way recruiting works doesn't really warrant that. Being from a non-target, I have found that my GPA has often been my ticket into interviews, and has at least helped me get my foot in the door. Studying something such as engineering or physics has always interested me, but to do so would be at the expense of my GPA. People always say "follow your passion" but that's just a crock of shit. Maybe follow your passion, but get used to $40k/yr.

It's kind of crazy how fucked up it is. Kids who work 10x harder than some business students have lower GPA's and won't even be considered for internships just because of a number. Sure, networking will get you far, but in my experience, BB shops won't even look at you unless you have a stellar GPA. Even after that is considered, sometimes they still won't look at you.

Coming in, I thought college would be about learning and expand my knowledge. However, at this point it is more about career development and growing my network.

All you really need is two things in a job hunt: A way in the door, and the ability to woo them once in.

GPAs are great ways to get a foot in the door- it gets HR wet since they seem to get their panties in a bundle about that stuff. The M&A internship stuff is your ticket to woo them once in, it's easily explainable that you sought our real world experience over some more BS classes that everyone explains to you will yield minimal to no benefit to you over your lifetime.

Whenever you get advice or criticisms, look at the source. What has this elderly professor done with his life? Is he another chump stuck in the academia rat race thinking grades are god?

Not to mention that if you ever go back for masters, MBA, or work in industry for 5 years nobody gives a fuck what you did in college the same as out of college nobody gives a fuck about your high school anything.

College is a great place to learn, at a going rate of $tooMuch per lesson. It's really good at getting you to follow through- if you actually want to learn all the info is available online for free, also you can buy textbooks anytime.

I used college 70% for career 30% to learn, but most of that learning was the intangibles that didn't happen in the classroom. It's worked out well for me so far.

I bet you'll find that your passion for learning will take you to many places that college just couldn't provide for you. Go travel the world like a vagrant for a couple months then get a job and you'll see just how myopic the college world really is.

High/Decent GPA from a good school, with a couple of internships coupled with the ability to relate with the interviewer > 3 Majors perfect GPA with no internships Asian robot.

Go for the GPA. I ended up doing masters/phd quant stat/maths units in UG which killed my GPA and lowered my career prospects. Yeah sure I appreciate the rigor but it definitely didn't help when it came to recruiting.

Unless you don't care about career then knock yourself out.

Yeah GPA is most important.

My B.S. was in Business, but took on another major and minor as I was interested in it, and I felt it was worthwhile, but it was little more than side talking points in interviews and I certainly wasn't paid more than my peers out of college at the same company for having more majors.

I would say it largely depends on what you're trying to break into, and a little bit about your background. If you're trying to go the IB/PE path directly after graduation, a stellar GPA is almost a must, and I doubt that any number of extra majors would help at all if the one that mattered was low.

I do agree that GPA almost only serves as an entry ticket and nothing else, given two students of similar attainments (a 3.5 and a 3.7, not a 4.0 and a 2.5), and the argument that people will refer to the GPA as a final indicator sounds pretty weak. I feel it's more of meeting an unspoken "minimum", let's say 3.3 for ST and 3.7 for IB, and then acing it from then onwards.

My background is slightly different because the grading system is a lot harsher in my country. The average GPA was somewhere around 2.6 and probably 1 or 2 people got higher than a 3.7 in each cohort of 40 people. The course structure was also pretty rigid in the sense that I had to study around 120 credits but 110 were fixed. So back to your question, I would always say GPA given the choice between the two, but if it was just a very miniscule and unnoticeable change, then education would come first.

GPA is king. Your friends who took those on those useless extra majors will be waking up 3 years later, barely able to pay rent, and asking themselves "Why did I waste my time majoring in something that I could have learned online in my free time."

priorities in college: 1. 1 major with high gpa 2. relevant internships 3. run through as many sororities as possible/create memories with friends

Similar to what's been said in the previous responses, I really don't think your School or GPA matters as much as one tends to believe. The way I see it, if one is to sort candidate pools and compare oneself to other students interested in the same thing, many factors that one considers crucial such as a high GPA and well branded school can potentially cancel out to not prove much of an advantage at all. If you think about it, someone else likely has the same GPA as you but at another more prestigious school. Ultimately the best thing you can do to set yourself apart is realize what you as an individual, not as a student at x or y school with x GPA, can bring to the table. With a good bit of introspection, a lot of self study, and clever social engineering, I think you can increase your chances substantially of landing whatever coveted non stem internship you're interested in. Unlike internships in Stem, the beauty of opportunities in business is that these will always have a strong sales component. Unlike in engineering where you need the institutional backing and proven subject matter expertise, entry level business opportunities, I believe, can be conquered through self study and an excellent "Why me" accompanied by evidence (previous internship experience). This was the mindset that allowed me to receive an offer from a top firm on the Buy side with a GPA below 3.5, at a Southern State school. I do know 3 languages and have had 3 relevant internship experiences and have talked to the right people.

I'd argue that you probably learned more from your internship than you ever did in school. Learning for the sake of learning is great, but formal education in a class room setting is only one path to acquiring knowledge. Also, classroom learning doesn't work well for many people (myself included).

I'd take most career and life advice from tenured professors with a grain of salt. In many cases they've never lived in the real world outside of academia.

Graduated from a top target.

I studied what I loved - and have ended up with an excellent VC gig. I use the skills I developed studying philosophy every day. The ability to think, be critical, be concise & have a complete understanding of your own position and making it coherent with all the facts you've uncovered has really helped me.

I really took university as an opportunity to learn - I even dropped a subject where I had ranked in the top 5 students because I didn't find it challenging enough.. (The doe-eyed naïveté of a teenager I guess lol). It definitely didn't help my overall GPA, but I definitely am better off for it (at least in terms of my intellectual development).

Angling for jobs is important - I'd never claim that it wasn't. But for me, building a robust analytical toolkit (along with having little ego about being wrong but enough ego to believe that I'm smart enough to not make the same mistake twice) have been crucial for me not just interviewing well and getting offers, but doing well once I sign contracts.

I also believe it has helped me foster a healthier attitude to reading & pushing myself intellectually post-graduation, because I was never burned having to force myself to revise & cram shit I hated.

Most of these responses here are complete and utter bullshit. The real world doesn't give a fuck about your college experience. The only reason they care about GPA is because it shows you have enough grit to sweat out the countless hours of mindless work(homework) and not fuck up on simple tasks. The best advice I can give you is to not sweat your GPA as intensely as people on here may make it seem. Your resume only get's you an interview, the rest is fit based because believe it or not there are thousands of people just as smart as you vying for that position. Figure out what specific niche you want to work in and develop some conviction, it will make you a more interesting person not just in interviews, but also in life. l8r alligator

Rumple4skin:

Today I had an elderly Chinese professor call me lazy for only doing one major.

You have a retard professor, mate.

If you're looking for intriguing schools of thought that you haven't been exposed to before, take electives. If you're looking even further, consider a minor, making sure that it does not impact your GPA poorly. Your future prospects are much easier when your GPA is not in the shitter.

You're fine. Whatever else you're interested in, take electives if you have the space, or just learn on your own time. Additional "expertise" isn't cared about as much as you think when you have a decent GPA, experience, and a decent school background. Your professor is an idiot.

GPA is in fact king in this scenario. Our society has made a simple number so important that it IS more important than actually learning things. Give me a 4.0 and erase everything I learned in college textbooks, no doubt.

For reference, I went to a non-target state school. 100% focused my time on maintaining a high GPA, developing relevant experience, and studying for interviews. I didn't have a minor or a second major, and took the exact number of credits I needed to graduate and not a single more. Made sure to retain necessary concepts, but also understood the vast majority of what I'd "learn" would not be extremely useful after graduation. I figured my time was better spent advancing my career, and so far, I'd have to say I was right.

Having said that, I really did enjoy the philosophy classes I took, and I would've actually loved to have taken more. It was one of the few topics outside of Finance that sparked my intellectual curiosity, and i really did enjoy the writing part as well. On top of that, it was fun interacting with the professors and TAs because their thought processes were much different than business professors. I flirted with the idea of picking up a philosophy minor, but came to the conclusion that the extra time spent in the classroom/studying would ultimately be detrimental to my career/happiness, so I didn't pursue.

In a perfect world, learning more about philosophy would've been great, but not at the expense of my career aspirations. Given that everything worked out the way I wanted, I wouldn't change a thing. The philosophy books will always be there for me should I choose to pick them up.

Consider the source. The professor is lost in academia/the ivory tower and doesn't realize the reason you mentioned. Work experience and one major will always trump 2+ majors with therefore likely minimal work experience. You played it just fine.