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Why I regret getting straight A's in college (penelopetrunk.com)
14 points by ddelony on Sept 25, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments


If you have to study 100 hrs a week and you're not going to MIT, you're doing something really wrong. And unless its a technical field, no one's going to care what your GPA is. There just isn't enough demand for English lit majors to need GPA as a differentiator.

To have the dedication to study 100 hours a week voluntarily for anything, really shows you picked the wrong major. With that sort of dedication you could excel at anything, even something you're not naturally gifted at.


Regarding her points:

  1.  No one has ever asked about my GPA.
If college is your terminal degree and you know you will never apply for a higher degree, that might make sense.

  2.  I didn't sleep.
One would hope that not getting straight A's wouldn't induce sleep, but instead would free up time to do more fun/cool/enlightening things. You'd still be sleep deprived.

  3.  I've forgotten 95% of it. 
Not sure that college is designed to impart information.

  4.  I didn't have time for people. 
  5.  Work experience is more valuable. 
These two seem reasonable.


Her point 2 claims she studied 100 hours a week to keep those grades, and averaged 3 to 5 hours of sleep a night. She probably hit diminishing returns well before the 100 hours, and would probably have benefited from doing other things and sleeping more. One or two nights without much sleep is OK, but doing that for an extended portion of time is unsustainable.


Re: she/her

The article was written by Jon Morrow, not Penelope Trunk...

Jon is actually an amazing guy. Here's another sample of his writing:

http://www.copyblogger.com/fight-for-your-ideas/




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