Grades Often Reflect Employment Survival and Knowledge Retention

Do grades really matter? HmmI'm not a teacher, an admissions counselor for a college, nor am I a hiring manager. So, you might be thinking to yourself that I should not have the gumption to write this article. And perhaps you are right. But I do have a track record of 6, almost 7 years of life experience post-college under my belt to draw from. And in those almost 7 years, I have developed the very strong personal opinion that grades are relevant throughout high school and college, but as you get more deeply ensconced in "real life" what really matters is your ability to apply your knowledge to complete tasks, your constant willingness to be a self-taught independent thinker to solve problems and your adeptness at thinking quickly on your feet and being able to anticipate and plan for the unexpected. The actual "grades" themselves matter insofar as they are an indicator of how well you mastered the knowledge that gives you the ability to handle live situations.

The stages in life where grades do matter are in the younger years while you are in high school and college. If you are lazy and neglectful of your grades in high school it will directly relate to the caliber of college that you may enter or if you can enter at all. If you are lazy and neglectful of your grades in college, you might find that you can enter the college of your choice but that more than likely you will not be able to stay in. And certainly I believe that if you graduate college with a weak transcript it will in some cases affect the quality of the first few jobs that you can qualify for after college.

The more serious issues surrounding poor grades are in the fact that your poor marks usually indicate an equally poor grasp of the material and an a potential inability to have a strong enough knowledge base to survive in the career field of your choice. And this becomes an even more critical issue if you find that you do not have an alternate plan for employment or economic survival.

Learn more about this author, Courtney Caswell-Peyton.
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