Old transcripts can be embarrassing

One of the adventures entailed in searching for a new job at my age is the reality of what you did, didn't do and should have done 40 years earlier. One job application asked for my college transcript. I once had a college transcript. I know I had seen it at some time in the previous 37 years. But I didn't have a copy. I had to order one.

Meanwhile, in filling out the job application, I had to guess at my grade point average. I came within five-hundredths of getting it right. I remembered it being at least five hundredths better than it actually was. Once I received the transcript, I read down the list of grades, repeatedly thinking, I got a C in that! Or I should have had an A in that! But I didn't. I did, however, enjoy my four years of college between the ages of 18 and 22.

Twelve years later, when I took eight courses toward a never-completed degree as I used up my GI Bill benefits, I did considerably better. My GPA was more than a full grade higher than it had been my first time through college classes. There were several reasons for this. First, the tuition, books and fees were coming out of my own pocket (although Uncle Sam kicked in enough that I actually came out ahead — but I needed that money to support my family). Second, I was married (with three children). I didn't spend half my class time wondering whether the co-ed in the next aisle would go out with me or who would be my date for Saturday's football game. When I was 20 years old, there were just too many distractions. Third, I had actually matured in the intervening dozen years. I took tasks more seriously. I gave studies a higher priority, and I considered doing well more important than I had the first time around. As only the second of my family to attend college, I thought a college degree, regardless of GPA, was a guaranteed ticket to success. I gave no thought to graduate school, and with a low draft number hanging over my future, I didn't think about better grades' potential impact on future job opportunities. I had also come under the influence of  students whose philosophy was "you get the same diploma whether you have a 2.0 (the minimum for graduation) or a 4.0. So why work yourself to death getting a 4.0?"

And there's also grade inflation. When I was an undergrad in the late 1960s, the student newspaper did a story about a graduating senior who had made only one B all four years; all other grades were A's. He had the highest GPA at the university. These days, scores of graduates walk across the podium with 4.0 GPAs. In those days, a 2.5 was a respectable GPA. A 3.0 was very good, and a 3.5 was stratospheric. These days, many colleges' average grade is above 3.0.

All of this comes under the heading of "if I had known then, what I know now ...". If I had, I would have studied harder, taken advantage of more of the academic opportunities the university offered and partied less.

Except ... I met my wife at a party, and no boost to my GPA would have been worth missing out on that serendipitous fortune.