Grades, Salaries, and the Real World
Hot on the heels of my extensive discussion on happiness, I must change topics a bit and point out a 2005 study by the American Chemical Society, specifically, “Senior Research Associate Janel Kasper-Wolfe of ACS’s Department of Member Research & Technology under the general guidance of the ACS Committee on Economic & Professional Affairs.” Fascinating, you say. Read on! So … what in this study could be so interesting, you ask? Well. This is an analysis of the starting salaries received by chemistry graduates in 2005. Possibly an ironic subject matter given my last post? Yes. Interesting? Without a doubt.
The C&EN News website provides the entire article summarizing the salary study (in PDF format) online, but I am interested in only one subset of the data. Above a table on the third page is the provocative heading saying, for those with bachelors degrees, “Title, certification, and grades have little impact on salary.” Grades. Grades have little impact on salary. Those with an ‘A’ GPA earned, on average, $35,700 per year. Those with a ‘C’ GPA earned, on average, $36,000 per year. This fact doesn’t surprise me, and let’s take a journey back in time to see why.
The summer after my junior year in high school, I applied at the local bike shop for my very first job. The employee discount on bikes and accessories, combined with the predominantly young, outdoorsy demographic made the job quite appealing. Attracted by what could be a fun debut in the world of work, I put my best (naive) foot forward to secure an interview by assembling a resume and crafting what I see now as the most embarrassingly formal e-mails I’ve ever read.
As a very responsible student, a fan of biking, and a quick learner, I thought I could get the job. I even referred a friend to this place, thinking we could work together. He got the job. I didn’t. Now, first realize I was happy for him and there were no hard feelings … I mean, it’s a summer job for gosh sakes. But even more importantly, by missing the job, I learned something about the real world: it is all about experience. My friend had some experience taking apart bikes—during my interview, I confessed I had some, but relatively little. This concept of experience is extremely obvious, I know, but consider the mind of a high schooler.
High school kids learn that the be-all and end-all of their existence is the grades they earn and conformity to endless rules and regulations. It is implied that when one successfully navigates these arbitrary obstacles, success in the real world will inevitably follow. This is fantastically false. The bike shop didn’t care about my class rank, or my latest National Honors Society whatever—they cared that I wasn’t on drugs, showed up to work on time, and knew bikes. High school is excellent at teaching lessons of self-discipline and delayed gratification, but it paints a picture of a meritocracy that doesn’t exist anywhere I’ve ever been.
So, somehow I’d like to impart the “think outside the box of high school” idea to future generations, except without all the negative corporate doublespeak that accompanies that particular catch phrase. Maybe it’s just a lesson one must learn own their own.
Comments
John
Maybe… Being in the right place at the right time? Or maybe, those people who had C’s were better teacher bargin’ers and could better negotiate their salaries. :)
Nils +1
There’s a saying that goes “D’s get degrees.” It’s a nice saying because it tells us that we can be slackers and it rhymes. I think there are some of us out there who could take that lesson, and Alex’s post to heart. Grades aren’t the be-all, end-all of our lives, let alone our collegiate careers. You can spend all your free time in libraries getting the best grades and the highest class rank, but if you’re not planning on going to grad school at Harvard, Yale or Oxford, you’ll be missing out on the bigger picture. Life experience counts for a lot as well. My advice to any youngster would be to do anything and everything that seems remotely interesting or fun. There is no telling who you will meet, what you will learn, or where you’ll go. Travel, play an instrument, join a club, be social, whatever. I’m willing to bet that in an interview a bright personality will shine a lot brighter than an impeccable resume any day.
Alexander Micek
I’ll even go one step further—even if you are spending all your time at the library because you are planning on going to Harvard, Yale, etc., you’re still missing out on the bigger picture. Then again, achieving balance and wide-ranging worldly experience in that sort of pressure-cooker academic setting requires almost herculean discipline.
I think the picture of Nils on a moped on Mykonos embodies his philosophy.