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Annoyinggirl: you asked what would matter more, school or GPA. While both are important for their own reasons (which I feel like is almost comparing apples to oranges), most employers are not going to hire someone straight out of college with 0 work experience. What you learn in the classroom vs. learning how to apply what you learned in real life is often very different. You need internships to show that you have experience working in the field, which shows you know how to apply what you learned in the real life.</p>
<p>The thing is, most good internships are very competitive and you need a great GPA to nab one. I have a family member who works pretty high up in a well known organization managing almost everything that deals with ArcGIS (Geographic Information Systems) and he always tells me the same thing: experience is key. They turned down a job applicant with a PhD in GIS from UCLA and hired someone with much “lower” education qualifications (I hate to say “lower”, but this applicant had a masers or just a bachelor’s I forget) instead because the applicant with the PhD had absolutely no job experience.</p>
<p>I graduated from UC San Diego and I can tell you that yes, while no employer directly asks for your GPA, it makes your resume or CV stand out much more if you are able to put “GPA: 3.5” underneath your listed school.</p>
<p>Lastly, 5k per year in loans is nothing. Education is an investment, but it’s up to you to make sure you set your path and make that investment worthwhile. However I completely agree with your decision to take classes at a CC first and then transferring to a 4 year (that’s what I wish I ended up doing).
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<p>Thank you very much for your advice.
<p>I feel that it’s best to avoid loans unless you’re majoring in something very very employable, such as engineering or cs, and are confident that you can get 3.0+ in it. Another advantage to attending a less prestigious school is that you would be competing against less motivated kids, and so your chances of getting a 3.0+ would be higher.</p>
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