We all know the feeling. Spending hours in isolated cubes on the seventh floor of Davis, tears streaming down onto our notes in anticipation of an upcoming exam.
You can put hours upon hours into studying for a class and still not perform well in terms of calculated grades. But, if this class is a general education requirement and not necessarily essential to your major — should it have an impact on opportunities within your academic field of choice?
Your GPA reflects how well you do on assignments, tests and sometimes how much you participate in a classroom setting. It is an attempt to measure your dedication, passion and willingness to advance in your field. However, this attempt is not always a successful measurement.
If a GPA blunder occurs in within a students’ first year of college, most of it can be explained by the fact they were adjusting to college. Allowing students to transition to college and navigate classes without being constantly worried their sub-par performance their first-year is going to ruin future opportunities is important.
This board recognizes the importance of the GPA requirements that several internship programs and opportunities require. It speaks to the prestige of the opportunity and could set you apart in your future job applications. While your GPA can be reflective of certain abilities, it doesn’t always tell the entire story.
For this reason, we believe GPA requirements should be suggestions, not necessarily set-in-stone requirements. You didn’t have to have an exact GPA, SAT score or class rank to get to college and that practice should continue.
UNC currently practices this in some areas. For example, within the School of Media and Journalism the required GPA is a 3.1. However, if you have a 3.0 and complete a thorough application supplying your journalism class GPA, a teacher recommendation and other materials you can receive a waiver.
When considering a student for a certain program, internship or opportunity, their GPA should be taken into consideration.
Giving students the opportunity to explain why they want an opportunity and how other skill sets they possess are applicable is extremely vital to the selection process for internships within a measure.
