How important is your GPA?

I begin hearing rants and complaints about the school, professors, exams and assignments as the final week of classes' approaches. The most thought-triggering comment of all the remarks I have heard was how important (or unimportant) a student's GPA is.

I have always argued that a student or a scholar needs to put studies as priority. Yet, I see that many students - especially those who perceived GPA as irrelevant to their future career - have not really looked at this issue from a professional viewpoint.

"The short answer to this question is, 'it depends,'" said Heather Huhman, a career expert, founder, and president of Come Recommended, a career and workplace education and consulting firm specializing in young professionals. On examiner.com, Huhman wrote that the level of importance of a student's GPA depends on the industry, the level of entry, and even the hiring organizations themselves.

"For example, consulting and major public accounting firms seek candidates with strong GPA - 3.6 and above - whereas other business-related roles may not be as particular, some sales professions, said Dale Austin, director of career services at Hope College.

"Got my application?"

Don't be relieved, this does not mean that students can get away with an okay performance at college. Huhman remarked that most organizations "simply need (legal) ways to weed out" the hundreds of applications they received for any one position. A student's GPA becomes very crucial at this point.

So to me, it is not about the skills and leadership qualities you beg to offer; it is about competing with hundreds of thousands of candidates out there who claim to have the same skills and qualities. What motivates your potential employer to pick up your resumes, from the thousands that are sent in each year? What makes you stand out? What helps you to jump off the page?

Answer: Your ability to be persistent, which is reflected upon your GPA.

Karen Nethersole, Esq., CEO and founder of Full Circle NY said the GPA is "not the be-all end-all."

"It is important for a student to show that he or she takes courses seriously enough to do whatever it takes to achieve the highest grade possible. This shows the ability to work consistently and persistently to achieve excellent results," Nethersole said.

It tells me something when a student is able to retain a 3.9 GPA while working 20-plus hours a week, volunteering on three different organizations, nailing several scholastic awards, and keeping a girlfriend/boyfriend happy.

"It is about what you are bringing to the table," Nethersole said. I have always observed some classmates of mine who claim that they do not need to take things "too seriously" since they are not into the "real-world" yet.

Let me tell you, my friends, "real-world" is just an excuse you give yourselves to have a little more time monkeying around. There is no "real-world;" it is now. If you don't plan to take things serious enough at this point in life, I have no confident that you are going to be any better in the near future.

Hence, stop alleging GPA as nonsense. Especially to seniors out there who are looking for an internship or entry level position, your GPA is the key to accomplish that.

"Without a long resume or professional accomplishments, employers have few criteria on which to judge potential new hires... the GPA may be one of the most important factors potential employers look at when evaluating their candidacy," Kristen Campbell, national director of College Prep Programs at Kaplan Admissions, said.

So, let's drop this rant and move on working on your grades. Good luck on your finals, and have a great summer.

Read more from Heather Huhman: Just how important is your GPA?

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The Initiation

Remember that sheet of yellow paper that every new junior probationary prefects get during their first week as "Probates?" I remember the seniors called them the orientation paper - well - it seemed to me more like a passport to a world of torture and humiliation, at first.

What we are asked to complete was to gather as many signatures of the existing prefects as possible. The more "senior" the signatures are, the more scores you'll get on your orientation performance. Most probates will never realize what they have gotten themselves into when they first receive that piece of instruction.

But it wouldn't take long before one knows the level of difficulty to get those signatures/initials on their paper - especially the more "senior" ones like the school executive board or the Captain himself. A Probate will literally have to perform any sort of given challenge by their seniors in order to get them sign the paper: from residing the prefect's oath, backwards, to cleaning the prefects room; from dancing, to singing...all sort of things that I now come to think of them as being really creative.

The best part of this orientation exercise? The person who signs the papers are allowed to do anything to the paper, too. Poor newbies, some of theirs got crumpled, torn apart, dipped into dirty water, and burned. I can't remember how much humiliation a new, young, fresh mind would have to suffer throughout that entire so-called socializing process.

So mine was basically covered with cuts, tapes and glue when I had to submit them at the end of the orientation week. And that was the worst orientation I ever had in my entire life.

Seven years have passed since then.

That piece of torn, crumpled paper is still imaged vividly in my memory. Why so? I realized there were more to the whole initiation, more to what we come to think of it as torture. I thought it may be the toughest mental training one could ever experience at a young age of 13.

Whatever "hazing" practices that we were asked to perform are more than what we could see from a surface level. If you uncover the lid of that process, you may see it as a learning opportunity. When else is the better time to let one experience the cruelty of the world? When else is a better time, to teach someone that life doesn't always give us sweet candies?

We, the seniors to the younger learners, self-teach the innocent souls about the reality of this world, even though we had to act as the "bad ass" during the course of such training. We, however, made sure that these boyish freshies are taught the lesson in a harsh but adequate manner. Some Probates did drop out from the process, yet many survived it. And I am sure those who had completed the whole task turn out to be a newer soul - stronger, tougher, realer.

I'm not siding the practice of haze in anyways. My point is that customs like that should be carried on legitimately. I haven't been visiting the prefects for years since my graduation from high school so I'm not sure if the Probates are still being "persecuted" that way.

Appreciate every chance to learn. Boys like us always need some hard time in order to see the charming side of life. What do you think?

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