How important are degree grades?

simu

Was gonna do a poll on this, but I'd like to get ppl's ideas first.

How important is the grade(i.e. 1H, 2.1, 2.2 etc) you get in your degree?
Well, it's obvoiusly important if you wanna stay in academia but outside that, does it matter?
I know in some countries (e.g. France AFAIK), having your degree is more important that what actual grade you got.
I also heard that some firms are reluctant to hire ppl with a 1H on the basis that they could be over-meticulous, anti-social types (I don't agree with this tho').

What do ye think?

RicardoSmith

For some jobs its important and for some it isn't. I don't think you can pin it down much further than that. Obviously if you are going to bother doing it at all you should do your best regardless. The less experience you have the more important it is obviously. If you are aiming for academia or civil service then it becomes much more important.

Whats your reason for asking? Its a loaded question really.

simu

I was just wondering, no hidden intentions:)

Some ppl seem to think getting a 1H is a sign of genius(an exagerration, surely), others don't seem to take exams too seriously at all( for example, doing no study for finals, just cramming the night before).

Wanted to see what other ppl think coz my college friends being mostly freaks like myself:), our views are possibly skewed!

RicardoSmith

Some are, some aren't. Obviously what you do in college is completely different from the real world. Some people do well in college and then badly in a real world situations. Others do even better. Theres no sure thing in life. Regardless of any theories.

beardedchicken

the degree grades you get, i would think depend largely on what course you're taking. i would assume that in highly competetive "professional" courses like medicine, vet, architecture etc, where you're pretty much going straight from college into your chosen field, it would be necessary to get very good grades, in order to get a small number of placements.

on the other hand, i'm doing arts, and i personally think that there's no earthly point in doing an arts degree unless you're going to do well. because arts is such a broad course, the people who actually end up in a steady job afterwards (assuming that's all you want out of a degree - it's not me, but hey...) are the ones who get the 2:1s and firsts. also, as someone already said, some postgrad courses that are exceptionally difficult to get into require very good grades

that said, i don't think that getting a first is necessariy a sign of genius- in most courses i know of, even the most intelligent people can end up with a seemingly average grade, and the ones who get the firsts are those who put in the hours and hours of hard slog.

sunbeam

Originally posted by beardedchicken

that said, i don't think that getting a first is necessariy a sign of genius- in most courses i know of, even the most intelligent people can end up with a seemingly average grade, and the ones who get the firsts are those who put in the hours and hours of hard slog.

I did Arts and got an overall 2:1-a first in one subject and a low 2:1 in the other.

I'm not saying that 'Subject A' was easier (I know lots of people who just couldn't get their heads around it at all) but at undergrad level it was slightly less subjective than 'Subject B'. Hence really hard work was more likely to result in a higher grade. In some humanities subjects there were years where nobody got an overall first at all....

deRanged

I think it depends on what you're using the degree for. As you said, if you're going into academia it's very important - eg with a 2h1 you might have to do an msc before a phd. In work I'm not sure - I know I put the fact that I got a 2H1 on my cv, but I don't think I've ever really been asked about it - just about my experience and what I did in college and what I got out of it. that's in computer science, going for programming jobs btw

Stark

Having a high grade helps get your CV through the filtering process, but at the end of the day it's the interview that gets you the job.

p.pete

Originally posted by k.oriordan
Having a high grade helps get your CV through the filtering process, but at the end of the day it's the interview that gets you the job.

A lot of graduate schemes will place a heavy emphasis on your overall result. Obviously the interview is the most important thing but if they ask for a 2:1 and higher then your CV will be ditched without getting as far as the interview.

That's basically because they have so many applicants and it's an easy way of reducing the numbers. A few years down the line though I don't think it really matters at all what your degree result was.

GuanYin

Depends on what you want to do.

Its a really thorny issue in research where all the old school professors want 1.1 graduates only and only the younger grantholders willing to look at 2.1s or, occasionally 2.2s.

In fact alot of my colleagues believe that 1.1 students can make bad postgraduates researchers as they get frustrated more easily.

In technical jobs, I don't think it should really matter, as with alot of them its on the job training that counts, and to be fair, most of the jobs are unrelated to the degree course content.

simu

In fact alot of my colleagues believe that 1.1 students can make bad postgraduates researchers as they get frustrated more easily.(quote)

How do you mean?

I would have thought they'd be better researchers coz to get a 1.1, you have to work consistently and be v. meticulous and having a 1.1 would indicate you're familiar with even the most arcane aspects of yourr subject, no?

Rew

I know people with 1.1's who struggle with research beause they got their 1.1 coz they learn and repeat it to the page without understanding it. They cannt tackle a problem because they cant use previous experience and apply it to the prooblem. Some 1.1's are very good but not necciarly any better then ome 2.1 or 2.2's.


Its only a biit of paper....

damnyanks

Well I got like a 60 in my database applications exam. It was Access basic SQL statements, basic normilisation... get the drift, easy enough stuff.

That results is from the other day not 15 years ago just incase you think that

Right now in work I am createing a full SQL database for a medium sized company. It includes all the bits and bobs needed.


SSOOOOOOOOOOOOO general gist of the story is grades arent that important

simu

Waaay! My worries are over. I got a first!:)

bug

I'd agree with most of the points made by skyirl, the institution which I work in research generally take students with 2.1's but this is not the only factor, if the student shows enthusiasm and has excelled in the practical area of their project work this is also a good sign of a practical researcher. Generally I think its important if you wish to go into academia mainly research. But it also depends on the area have studied in.

p.pete

Originally posted by simu
Waaay! My worries are over. I got a first!:)

No research for you:cool:

GuanYin

Originally posted by simu


How do you mean?

I would have thought they'd be better researchers coz to get a 1.1, you have to work consistently and be v. meticulous and having a 1.1 would indicate you're familiar with even the most arcane aspects of yourr subject, no?

Hey, Bug and Rew elaborated on most of what I meant.

Basically the demands of research and the demands of studying for an exam are totally different. Alot of 1.1 students do well be cause they can just recite stuff they learn off.

Unfortunately in research alot of the big questions you will come across don't have any answers yet (that would be your job) and this often frustrates those who are used to reciting stuff they have learned.

I know more 1.1 students who have left PhD courses at masters level than 2.1 students. In my experience (which is by no mean definitive) 2.1 students tend to be alot more driven in research.

simu

Perhaps it depends on the nature of the subject you study. For my degree it would have been impossible to get a 1.1 by learning things off unless you got some type of memory add-on for your brain!
But, once you understood the underlying concepts involved, it didn't involve too much learning by rote.

I'm disappointed that there are courses in existence where it is possible to get a 1.1 in the manner described by skyeirl - if I were writing the exam papers for such courses, I would include questions that demanded the candidates use their reasoning abilities rather than giving the highest mark to whoever managed to cram the greatest amount of facts into their head.

p.pete

Originally posted by simu
Perhaps it depends on the nature of the subject you study. For my degree it would have been impossible to get a 1.1 by learning things off unless you got some type of memory add-on for your brain!
But, once you understood the underlying concepts involved, it didn't involve too much learning by rote.

I'm disappointed that there are courses in existence where it is possible to get a 1.1 in the manner described by skyeirl - if I were writing the exam papers for such courses, I would include questions that demanded the candidates use their reasoning abilities rather than giving the highest mark to whoever managed to cram the greatest amount of facts into their head.

In my course a lot of the lecturers were quite lazy. The idea of coming up with new questions bored them. There was a pool of 2 or 3 exams worth of questions and if you knew how to do these the exam was quite straight forward.

If you wanted to, you could go to the effort of figuring out the questions - or you could get the answer from some other source and remember it as best you could.

Also in my degree there was practicals / labs / experiments. The answers to these could be obtained from lots of sources and if you were that way inclined the notion of original thought did not have to come into the equation.

Finally we were marked on a final year project. 60% of the marks went on the report - which didn't (ideally it would) necesarily need to have actually discovered or progressed any ideas.

GuanYin

Originally posted by simu
Perhaps it depends on the nature of the subject you study. For my degree it would have been impossible to get a 1.1 by learning things off unless you got some type of memory add-on for your brain!

Really? May I ask what course you did?

Most courses try and make you think by obscuring the questions to the topic (or topics) somewhat, thus ensuring that the student is applying knowledge and not just learning by rote.

Unfortunately this is
A) The wrong time to be teaching the student abstract thinking
Negated by the fact that very few lecturers do more than vary wording and figures of questions each year.
and
C) Really just testing the short term memory of the student.

This is one of the reasons that US colleges look down on some Irish degrees, their systems (in technical based courses) usually impliment MCQs and abstract problem solving over a term. Its harder to pass a course this way as essays are papers that must be researched throughout the year and the knowledge picked up in this way stands better than that learned off for essay style exam questions.

simu

Well, for my degree I studied Irish and French - to do well in these, you had to have a really good command of both languages(grammar, vocabulary) , something which could only be done by working regularly over the 4 years of the course - you had to be able to translate previously unseen texts into and from both languages and be ready to write essays on any topic in both languages.

We also had courses on Irish and French literature - to do well in these, you had to have a good understanding of the texts and given that most books we studied were pretty obscure, it wasn't possible to learn off notes from study guides the way ppl do for Leaving Cert English. Plus Arts lecturers have an in-built bullsh*t detection system - you might manage to pass a paper by waffling but you wouldn't get a good grade.

I also did a post-grad course in computer science - the exams involved mostly having to produce code that would provide a specified output - this basically involved having good knowledge of the different languages we learnt as the questions varied greatly from year to year. We also had to provide algorithms, design basic circuits, solve problems etc etc in exams - it would be near impossible to learn all possible permutations of this stuff off by heart - but pretty easy to attempt a solution if you understood the basic principles involved.

Basically, what I'm saying is that no matter how good your short-term memory, it is impossible to get a solid grip on the syntax of say Old Irish grammar or Java only by cramming for a few days before the exams! I can see how somebody might be able to scrape a pass this way but I don't think they would manage a 1.1 or even a 2.1/2.2 .

Of course, having a good memory does help at college but I make a distinction between remebering information, understanding it and being able to use it on one hand and cramming stuff you barely understand and regurgitating it on the day of the exam on the other hand.

RicardoSmith

Your assuming that all college degree courses are good. In my experience there are a lot of rubbish courses where many of the exams are simply memory dumps. Which is why you get students with amazing grades who seem amazingly dumb when confronted with comon sense problems in the work place. Not always the case but it happens. I remember as part of my own degree, one exam where we were required to write out a memorised computer program (pascal I think) line by line using pen and paper. During my years in college I encountered many such exams and tests. Since then I've found others have had the similar experiences in college.

nesf

To be honest mate all this grading stuff depends on where you do your degree more than what you're studying.

For example I'll be graduating this year with a general degree in physics as opposed to an honours degree. It'll also be of very low grade.

This is because I had the joy of suffering from clinical depression and suffering a nervious breakdown a month before my exams. This combined with my inability to attend lectures don't make me very well adjusted towards exams. Yet I was accepted for doing a HDip in Applied Physics in my college, and have already published papers with one of my lecturers.

The long and short is, my degree grade is terrible, not even an honours, yet I am good at my subject, I just suck at doing exams.

But I was told, that no-one will be looking at my degree results, but at what I've published and any theises I've submitted.

In Science your grade means nothing unless you've the papers published to back it up.

Anyways, congrats on your 1H mate!

-Padraig

simu

hey nesf, in my uni, if you were unwell at the time of your exams, this gets taken into account when awarding grades and sometimes they let ppl resit exams in autumn.

p.pete

Resitting the exams shouldn't really be necessary if you have been in the college for years and your lecturers etc. already know what you are capable of.

If you are lucky enough they will have common sense - I think a lot of colleges might look at the rule book and decide you can't do further study due to poor grades. Definitely though if you can point to publications and good practical work the exams won't matter a jot.

PHB

I just think that if you have the ability to get a 1.1, why dont you go for it? Otherwise you're just wasting your talents.

My opinion would be that if both college graduates just came out of college, and they both had no experience, then the employer would favour the person with the 1.1 over the 2.1, if you ignore the interview? Am I wrong in this assumption?

If you have the ability to get a 1.1 you owe it to yourself to get it.

jesus_thats_gre

I just graduated from a computing degree and can associate my experiences with alot of what you said. I graduated with a 61.5% average and spent half the year helping people who graduated with 1:1s to understand the different topics we covered. The majority of people who got 1:1s just streamed pages upon pages of notes that they memorised in the exams. My class was the first year to graduate from this specific degree.

To be honest, I cant wait till this people are asked relevent questions in job applications, they really wont have a clue and it will be very apparent how they got the grades they did. In the end, things will balance out

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by jesus_thats_gre

To be honest, I cant wait till this people are asked relevent questions in job applications, they really wont have a clue and it will be very apparent how they got the grades they did. In the end, things will balance out

Actually they will find a way to get someone else to help them. They always do.

Lump

Right, I may aswell stick my opinion on here. I am doing media production in Carlise, northwest England. Yes I'm from Ireland. Anyway, as far as the media industry goes, a degree isn't worth the paper its written on. I wouldn't try and get a job without it as if the economy stays on the downward slope it would be hard to get a job in media without a degree . But you can easily work your way from the bottom up. I am trying to get as much experience as I can before I finish college. If you have experience, then employers, even if they look to see if you have a degree, wont look to see what kind of a degree you have. Thats why I;m going to work on pierce Brosnans new film "Laws of Attraction". Its not what you know, it's who you know, and this rings through for this type of work anyway.



John

DaithiSurfer

In IT you do not want to have a 1.1 in your degree.I know of so many people who reject 1.1s because they are more likely to learn things off by heart and are no good at thinking on there feet or breaking new ground.
Most 1.1's (not all) are socially inept as well.
They just cannot be made part of a team succesfully.
Jesus i know one guy who was a 1.1 in Computer Apps in DCU who got sent on a personality development course by his employer. It didnt work so he got let go.
I have seen this first hand.
You're better with between 2.1 and 3.1 grades.

sunbeam

Originally posted by DaithiSurfer
You're better with between 2.1 and 3.1 grades.

3.1? I never heard of a college that subdivided third class honours.

Are you suggesting that students with the potential to get a first should dumb down their work so that their grades would make them more attractive to employers?

In many cases somebody who got a third/pass may also be learning things off-but may not be very good at even that. I've seen this lots of times, but then again I haven't worked in IT.

Most people with firsts that I know are far from 'socially inept'.

DaithiSurfer

es indeed there is such a thing as a 3.1
Don't think there is a 3.2 tho.
but anyway, i wouldn't suggest people dumb down, just be careful about how much you advertise your 1.1. Just advertise it to the right people (figure it out).
Like i said not all 1.1's are socially inept but you should check out the hight percentage of socially inept 1.1s in IT.
Before you ask, i got a 1.1 and there is a stigma to it.
I don't put my result on my CV anymore. I just but Hons in Computer Applications on it.
After a few years no-one cares what your degree was anyway, Its old news.

GuanYin

Oh for the love of god.

In my experience, the average looking at CV's stint goes like this:

The job ad says degree and/or equiv. experience. Most people applying will have a degree so..

1. Experience: Those with relevent experience conveyed on their CV make it to pile two.

2. Education: Those with good education from the experience pile make it to round 3. If there are few of these, look at those with little experience but good education.

3. Interests: Have a look at those in the final pile, weed out any that seem like the may not fit into current work environment (rarely happens).

And thats it... if someone was hired and needed to go on a personality then the interviewer he had should be taken intoa room and flogged. Thats what interviewers are there for.

It doesn't mean 1.1s are dull people, it means that they didn't pick the right person from the candidates.

Borzoi

Right, I've hired engineering grads in the past and will in the future.

I skim a CV and letter - you have the right degree, you get into pile two, irrespective of grade, college etc.

You get to the top of pile two with relevant experince, courses, particular subjects, assignment thesis etc.

If you get to interview, I'll ask about your degree, thesis etc, but I don't really care. You know damn all, we're going to have to train you to be able to do anything useful, a degree is merely an indication that you are trainable. The questions I ask are to find out , in as much as possible, what you're capable of, will you be able to cope in my workplace etc.

I always ask the candidate to justify the level of their degree - to see what the person is about, so don't worry about the details of the grade.

Obviously this applies to engineers, in the Real World as opposed to academia.

BTW it's worth noting that all experinced technical professionals regards graduates as useless, but with potential, so don't be too upset when a manager gives you s*** as a result

myhandle

Do IT's have a different marking scheme, and thus uncomparable grades from Universities.

(I ask cos friends in ITs seem get 85% and upwards in summer exams, but other friends get only 65% in Univ exams)

Gavin

Originally posted by DaithiSurfer
es indeed there is such a thing as a 3.1
Don't think there is a 3.2 tho.
but anyway, i wouldn't suggest people dumb down, just be careful about how much you advertise your 1.1. Just advertise it to the right people (figure it out).
Like i said not all 1.1's are socially inept but you should check out the hight percentage of socially inept 1.1s in IT.
Before you ask, i got a 1.1 and there is a stigma to it.
I don't put my result on my CV anymore. I just but Hons in Computer Applications on it.
After a few years no-one cares what your degree was anyway, Its old news.

This talk of socially inept first class honurs stuff is stupid. Likewise people's aptitude for research.

A high level degree simply shows that the person is willing to work hard and/or is quite smart. The only way of then judging the person's ability is by interview or examing projects and previous work the person has done.

Also the sweeping generalisations of 1.1's learning off pages of notes/being socially inept is just cack. Some people of course, but not the majority.

Gav

Walter_Sobcek

In my experience, coming from a business backround - all you really need is a 2:2, just so you can claim that you have an honours degree.

It's seen as a little bit crass to put down your actual grade after about 1 years experience so honours degree is all you'll ever need.

The only time I've ever needed my 2:1 was when I was applying for the grad programme that I'm on now. Which by the way is an excellent idea to get on for a year or two after college.

sunbeam

In contrast, I've found that whenever I've left grades out HR departments seemed to think I had 'something to hide'.

I've even been grilled about LC results up to ten years after sitting it (and having a degree plus relevant experience). This was mainly in the public sector/education/library fields though...

GuanYin

I think different sectors look for different things on a CV but christ, LC results after a degree? I'm wondering if they just wanted to see your reaction!

sunbeam

I've been asked about it more than once actually, as have a few of my friends.

In one case they seemed far more interested in my LC than my ability to do the job-or my Master's thesis which was directly relevant to it. A few questions from me revealed that it was the classic case of the internal candidate and the job that they 'had' to advertise.

I generally find that HR reps on interview panels tend to ask quite weird questions and have a tendency to find imaginary CV problems. I've even been in the bizarre situation of having a future boss leap to my defense when one HR person tried to make a big deal about my lack of 'teamwork orientated' hobbies. A friend had to gently point out to another that the 'gap' between her summer jobs was a result of her going back to college!