<p>This is how life works, especially at the more competitive business schools. </p>
<p>Attending a top 10 business school, I generally find this to be true, especially of the better students. It is about networking and procuring job offers, a difficult task, especially in the Finance industry during this recession. Most of those opportunities have vanished, even the top students who have tons of industry experience (a roommate), have had difficulty in the job search process. Class is mostly a distraction,since outside of some Finance and Accounting classes, they don’t really teach anything that anyone would REALLY be that interested in. </p>
<p>Most kids love to take community classes or sometimes even “online ones” to avoid taking them at the University. Truth be told, the University ones aren’t exactly that hard either. And even if they take pre-reqs in residence, business students are usually the ones searching for the ones that award easy A’s. Some, it is for financial reasons, but for most it is because these classes will count for credit and not grades, and that those classes are generally extremely easy. And grades come first. Learning falls way behind (but really, I don’t see that I’m learning anything substantive in most classes). </p>
<p>I’d love to see one of two solutions that would alleviate the problem. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Require a stringent core curriculum for students that must be completed at the University. This way, you would ensure the students are actually learning and gaining useful knowledge in their classes, and prevent the CC or online cop out. </p></li>
<li><p>Simply drop the basics requirements. If you don’t want to learn it, or only take the class for the grade or because you have to, you shouldn’t be required to. Then you could graduate in three or even two years, without having to worry about English Literature or Chemistry for Non-Applicants if you really don’t feel that class has any value to you. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m leaning more towards option two, since option #1 would most likely just produce a glutton of cutthroat students in classes they have no interest in, which in my opinion, would lead to some pretty depressing lecture halls. </p>
<p>Business school, well mine at least, has been extremely helpful to me, in the terms that it required students to frequently tackle group projects. I’ve learned more from working together with students of various abilities and talents than from the work itself. It is hard to work as a team! And my business school does a great job of teaching us and forcing us to do this. </p>
<p>GPA matters for getting your foot in the door. But networking, is probably more important. It is about who you know, not what you know. And for all intents and purposes, a high GPA in these times does not mean you have a high reservoir of knowledge, but that you know how to play the GPA game of class-picking. </p>
<p>Most students know this. But employers are incredibly naive and not up to speed on this trend. They should take notice and take the students GPA with a grain of salt.</p>