Poor GPA, Target School: How to Approach FT Networking?

Hi all,

I'm a rising senior at a target school with a shitty gpa (approx 2.9). There's no reason to beat around the bush here, but I had some family issues that lead to some excessive partying and shirking of responsibilities (which became a bit of a vicious cycle). Regardless, the summer has been a very sobering experience (literally) and I want to come back to school and fix my shit. I know this is going to be an uphill battle, but I want to be the student I know I can be, and get the job that I set out to get last year.

This brings me to my question: how should I approach FT recruiting? I know I'll be leaning almost entirely on networking and the connections I make in order to try and swing interviews, but should I put my GPA on my resume? Again, I'm going to buckle down and finish out strong, so assuming I get a 4.0 I'll be starting the spring semester with a 3.3 or so.

Do I start networking now, build up my relationships over the fall and then hope during the spring that I can find some shop with a FT position open? Do I aim for recruiting in the fall, discuss my GPA issue when its brought up and hope it doesn't become TOO big of an issue? I think my main fear right now is that I'll "waste" my initial outreach with alumni when they see my piss-poor GPA, and they won't want to stay in contact even when I have improved my standing.

Any and all advice is appreciated, thanks.

 
Best Response

I would suggest that you think about extending graduation by a semester or two as Gameofthrones mentioned. It would two things for you,

1st it will give you chance to work on your GPA and second you can try to get 2018 SA stint which would automatically lead to an full-time offer.

IMO targeting directly full-time will be more difficult than targeting SA. that's my 2 cents and I wish you the best of luck.

 

To you and Gameofthrones , thanks. I'm a little older than the traditional senior and attending out of state, so pushing back graduation is currently towards the bottom on my (short) list of options.

Though I'm sure you don't have any personal experience with this, would graduating in December be just as good as waiting until spring? As far as getting a SA position is concerned (and of course, excluding the GPA boost an additional semester would net).

 

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