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I stumbled upon an interesting post on Brazen Careerist titled “Twentysomething: Why I regret getting straight A’s in college”. I too was obsessed with getting straight A’s in college (undergraduate). I graduated with all A’s except 1 measly B. However, I don’t regret it. I don’t disagree with any of the main points made in the Brazen Careerist post, but I do disagree with the conclusions. Let me address each point and explain why.

1. No one has ever asked about my GPA.
Same here, but then again I didn’t do it so I could brag that I was a straight A student. In fact, I didn’t announce it to anyone. It shows up on my resume, but I don’t think it has done anything for me as far as being perceived as a “straight A student”.

2. I didn’t sleep
Me too! For a whole semester I only slept 3 hrs per day (using the Polyphasic method). But you know what? This instilled a great work ethic, which I carried over into my professional career (ie, cube sleeping). Not sleeping much doesn’t work for some people, but it does for me. Even now I need a max of 6 hours per night.

3. I’ve forgotten 95% of it.
Same for me. My brain is definitely wired to “use it or lose it.” That means I forget stuff relatively easily if I don’t recall it periodically. Most of the stuff I learned in college I haven’t had to recall since then, so it is lost in the nether regions of my brain. But is that really a reason not take classes (or read a book)? If you applied that same logic further, you should never take any classes (or read a book) because you’ll likely forget most of it. I believe learning (and brain development) is a cumulative process. The important point isn’t that I’ll remember some obscure detail, but connections are made in my brain that enable to me learn other things more quickly or to gain insights not possible without the prior learnings.

4. I didn’t have time for people.
Me either. But that has more to do with the fact that I’m by nature an introvert. Can you make a lot of friends and still make straight A’s? Absolutely! Study groups, clubs, intra-murals, etc. are all options. And you can still attend social events, but not every night. Would you want to do that anyway? Sounds like a pathway to alcoholism rather than making a bunch of friends.

5. Work experience is more valuable.
Work experience is critical. Your work experience will definitely provide more possibilities for career advancement than getting a 4.0 over a 3.0. That said, I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive. I did both. I had two internships at high tech companies while I was in college. I didn’t have to do any classwork during my internships and yet I still got some class credit. It was the best of both worlds and I highly recommend it to any college student.

What about Graduate School?
A big reason I wanted to do well in college was so I could attend MIT for grad school. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized that goal, but knowing what it took to push myself and do well in an academic setting was extremely helpful to perform well in a top school like MIT. (i’ll save the benefits of going to grad school for a later post.)

In summary, even with many years of experience under my belt and knowing what I know about the “real world”, I’d still recommend to an 18 year old Robbie to do his best in college. For type-A personalities like myself, it is very difficult to turn my passion for achievement off and on like the flip of a switch. I’m concerned that if 18 year old Robbie started intentionally slacking early in college, it would have continued into my professional career. I would have regretted not giving it my all.