Blade07
06-30-2007, 07:36 PM
Fortunately, so far I have not been grilled hard about some of my poor grades in interviews. But I do know that sometimes, students are asked to explain some of their poor grades. I've been fortunate to get off pretty lightly so far, but I don't want to count on that being the case in the future. I want to be well prepared to offer a good answer.
My first two years of college were rather poor, particularly my freshman year. The problem is, a lot of the pre-req classes were taken in those two years. Really, I don't have a good-sounding explanation for those grades. I originally enrolled as an engineering student and I quickly realized that I hated it. So that can provide a bit of an explanation, but some of these grades were really bad (An F, some Withdraws and several Cs). We do have a notorious "weed out" system here for engineers. Should I mention that, or would it sound like I'm making excuses?
My grades improved after I switched majors to biology, but still they didn't quite take off until my junior year. I just didn't get it together until later in college. I wasn't as mature as I am now, I wasn't organized enough and my time management skills were terrible. In my junior and senior years there was a marked improvement; I had a 3.6+ GPA throughout.
There were a couple of land mines (Immunology, the hardest bio class we have here, rocked me pretty hard), but for the most part, I faired much better in 3000 and 4000 level sciences (majoring in biology) than 1000 and 2000 level. Honestly, I can't think of what changed in me to make me a better student in my junior and senior years. All of a sudden, I was just better. I only have a 3.1 cumulative GPA, but I have a 3.3 science GPA mainly because my last 2 years were heavy on science.
So how should I explain it to them? Would it be a good idea to mention the fact that I hated engineering and the weed out system, but without using that as an excuse? Should I tell interviewers that the few bad grades I received in my last 2 years were due to hard teachers?
My first two years of college were rather poor, particularly my freshman year. The problem is, a lot of the pre-req classes were taken in those two years. Really, I don't have a good-sounding explanation for those grades. I originally enrolled as an engineering student and I quickly realized that I hated it. So that can provide a bit of an explanation, but some of these grades were really bad (An F, some Withdraws and several Cs). We do have a notorious "weed out" system here for engineers. Should I mention that, or would it sound like I'm making excuses?
My grades improved after I switched majors to biology, but still they didn't quite take off until my junior year. I just didn't get it together until later in college. I wasn't as mature as I am now, I wasn't organized enough and my time management skills were terrible. In my junior and senior years there was a marked improvement; I had a 3.6+ GPA throughout.
There were a couple of land mines (Immunology, the hardest bio class we have here, rocked me pretty hard), but for the most part, I faired much better in 3000 and 4000 level sciences (majoring in biology) than 1000 and 2000 level. Honestly, I can't think of what changed in me to make me a better student in my junior and senior years. All of a sudden, I was just better. I only have a 3.1 cumulative GPA, but I have a 3.3 science GPA mainly because my last 2 years were heavy on science.
So how should I explain it to them? Would it be a good idea to mention the fact that I hated engineering and the weed out system, but without using that as an excuse? Should I tell interviewers that the few bad grades I received in my last 2 years were due to hard teachers?