College Athletes & Grades

fanofgame posted:

I think there are some on this board that look down on certain degrees and I think its rude. 

It's not the degree. It's the overall course of study and what it says about how the applicant used his or her time on campus to prepare for life as an adult.

Anybody who strove for excellence in anything can be a viable candidate for an entry level position. Playing a sport all the way through college checks this box for me.

My rule of thumb is that the less obviously practical a person's major, the more I expect to see either excellence within that major or conscious effort to take practical courses outside of the major. 

Just having a degree--even a degree from a good school--doesn't count for much.

When I encounter a college transcript with an undistinguished record in a humanities or social science major and no courses in statistics, computer science, or anything business related, I regretfully conclude that the young person is not prepared for a grown-up job.

I especially feel that way when the applicants didn't immerse themselves in their chosen liberal arts major.

I received a resume from an English major with a degree from a well respected school. English majors usually have an aptitude for writing and a basic understanding of grammar, so I can turn them into useful employees as fast as I can train them to lose their academic jargon, passive voice, and empty extra words.

However, this particular English major caught my eye because he never took a course in Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, or the Victorian novel. And he didn't excel in the random courses he took on gender issues in modern drama and postmodern textual criticism. An English major with a so-so GPA who didn't take any practical courses outside his major, avoided the hard courses in his major, and can't sustain a conversation about the most important figures in his chosen course of study presents himself as someone who hasn't learned how to apply himself or work hard.

I'm sorry if you think it's rude of me to say so, but this gentleman has a worthless degree that he is still paying for on the installment plan. Despite the brand name on his diploma, he is unemployable and he is also unqualified for graduate study in his field.

I don't have anything against liberal arts degrees. In the past two years, I have hired an English major, a history major, a theology grad student, and a fine arts major.

But in every case, they excelled in their major and they took courses outside their major to prepare for their eventual job search.

I don't think it's rude to tell prospective college students that employers will care about what they take and how well they do.

One of my sons took a very sound approach-he loaded up on the hours in the fall, took an on line class in the summer, and normally carried only 12 hours during the spring semester. He graduated in 4 years with an excellent GPA. It can be done but it takes a lot of time management and that's where a lot of players fall down. You can have your fun to be sure, but time management is critical to succeeding academically.

There are plenty of degrees that in Latin mean, "Now I have to go to grad school." Even some practical degrees requires a masters for the better jobs and decent pay.

When I came out of college companies like IBM, Burroughs, NCR, Xeroox, etc. were big interviews. In the campus cattle calls (first interview) the first aurstion was "what's your major?" It had to be business or math related or sayonara. The second question was gpa. It had to be at least a 3.0.

i told my kids a 3.0 is the average grade in college now. If they want to stand out they need a 3.5 or better. They both did it. My daughter had to work at a prestigious law firm for two years and build contacts to get accepted to an Ivy law school. Ivies look down their noses at most southern educations.

Wow Swampboy, u can tell someone is unemployable by looking at his resume. Maybe he's a wrong fit for a certain job after being interviewed  where specific ques are asked.  Some of the most gifted kids in class are the ones who only score so-so on tests. Let's hold judgement untill more  info is known.

maybe he wants to go into another field w grad degree. Many law students are English majors. Who knows this young mans real story. 

Switching degrees is tough, you can lose credits and that puts you behind in graduating.

RJM posted:

You will probably find the athletic numbers you present closely resemble regular student population numbers. More than 50% of the students in the Cal State system are taking remedial courses. The graduation rate at UMass Boston is about 15%. The issue isn't athletics. The overall student population graduation rate is about 55%.

 

The issue is the shambles the American education system has become. It's also ignorant and racist to insinuate football and basketball are black and stupid.

Go Trump! Right?

Ummmmmm...I think you are the only one so far injecting race into the picture.  

White guilt much?  (there I threw in race.) 

My older son and I visited a D2 college in Arkansas back in 2007.   After visiting the campus, talking to some of the professors, my son went to talk to one of the asst football coaches as he was interested in walking on.  (My son was 6'-1 190 at the time).   The asst coach said, after hearing my son was going to major in Math or Biology, that most of the players don't take hard classes and he would recommend against it.  This was after he learned my son scored a 33 on the ACT and had a 4.0 GPA.  Oh yea, RJM, my son is white if that helps.  

I haven't been on the site for a while for various reasons and I haven't read all the subsequent comments but I will throw my 2 cents in.

College is hard for most. It is completely different than HS. My son was graduated in top 25-30 out of 500 or so. Had a high GPA. Scored well on Math-ACT, English-not so much.  But he didn't know how to study. Never had to study much in HS.

I never realized how time consuming playing college baseball is. I had pictured it, incorrectly, as maybe getting to the field before 7AM daily and doing something for 1-3 hrs and then going to class/study, etc. Nope, a player may have to be at the field 2-3 different times each day.  Classes are not all consecutive and together. They are broken up. My son's time management skills were/are horrendous. Mine at that age probably were too. When I was in college, I started my college classes at 8 every day and was finished by noon except for labs.  It is different now.

Son's coaches though do stay on top of their players. His academic advisor does too.  HC reamed my son a new one last December because his grades for his Freshman Fall semester were not where they should be.  He was at 2.75 or so.  Thankful for the Summer classes which kept the GPA above 3.00.  Although grades are important to coaches, baseball is too. They expect both from their athletes. My son changed his major from Mechanical Engineering to Pre-Law (one day) and is now in Pre-Med. Who knows where he will end up. I just want him to have core courses taken so he doesn't have to take extra hours but we will see.

He drove home last night, finished for the semester. He will end up with a 3.00 or 3.25 for the Spring so he will have an overall Freshman GPA of slightly above 3.00.  That's not what I wanted or expected but looking back, I probably expected too much. He says that he learned late in the Spring semester how to study (we will see).  But it has got to be his choice.

My wife and loved seeing him late last night. His idea of packing is to throw everything in garbage sacks. His truck was crammed full including the futon that his GF was discarding that he drove 8 hours home with in the back....

PS: My daughter on the other hand is not an athlete but is graduating after 5 years from Texas A&M next Saturday with her Masters in Accounting, Emphasis in Tax (and 4.0 GPA in her Master courses). She has qualities he doesn't have and likewise, he has some she doesn't.   WHOOP!!!

playball2011 posted:

Wow Swampboy, u can tell someone is unemployable by looking at his resume. Maybe he's a wrong fit for a certain job after being interviewed  where specific ques are asked.  Some of the most gifted kids in class are the ones who only score so-so on tests. Let's hold judgement untill more  info is known.

maybe he wants to go into another field w grad degree. Many law students are English majors. Who knows this young mans real story. 

Well, yes. I was once in charge of hiring for a very large organization, and now I hire for the teams I supervise at a smaller organization. Having seen a couple thousand resumes from new college grads looking for their first "real" job after school, I can often distinguish quickly between the young people for whom college was about enjoying the experience and the ones who were there to work to prepare themselves for adult responsibilities and adult opportunities. 

Thanks for reminding me that many unemployed English majors enroll in law school and incur additional debt to gain credentials in a field that is even more difficult to get established in than academia. It does reinforce my point, and it is gracious of you to offer it.

fanofgame posted:

Well Thank God there are companies willing to train young grads and thank God others see things beyond a piece of paper.

Learning after college is something most students should continue to do to continue to improve their resumes along with job experience. 

 

Seriously, fanofgame, please refrain from the moral preening.

Yes, learning after college is a requirement. That's why it's important for people's college records to show that they've done it before.

What in the world do you want me to "see" "beyond" the pieces of paper they themselves submit to convince me they are willing to work and learn? Am I not allowed to read and evaluate the documents, or am I just supposed to rub my fingers over the embossed seals and be impressed by the name of the school?

The reputation of the college tells how successful they were in high school. The information on the transcript tells something about how hard they worked during college. Guess which is more relevant information?

When I'm sorting through a couple dozen resumes to fill a non-technical entry level job that barely pays enough for a young person to share an apartment in an expensive metro area, how much effort do you really expect me to expend to learn the life stories of all the applicants? 

fanofgame posted:

5. "Make sure you pick good people to build your business with, as they'll determine 80 percent of your success. The best people are honest and have lots of enthusiasm. Don't worry too much about their level of experience when you're interviewing, as the right attitude always delivers much more than just experience."

6. "I built the business exactly the way my mother built and ran her family. I wanted a replication of the big, happy family I grew up in. I wanted happy people having fun."

From Barb on shark tank

I think maybe there are people who think different 

 

The right attitude is the question here fanofgame, that's what Swampboy is saying.  The person with the right attitude would take advanced courses in what they wanted to do, not sit down with their advisors and plot out the simplest route to graduate.

When you hire people that take the easy way out of everything you don't have a happy workplace you have people that are waiting to throw other people under the bus and don't take responsibility for their own actions, or inactions, because these are also the "I'm going to stay in my box and only do what I am strictly told to do, I'm here for a check, nothing more."

Saying the board has changed based on the comments of one or two users seems like painting with too wide of a brush.

Sincerely,

An English Major

JCG posted:

Saying the board has changed based on the comments of one or two users seems like painting with too wide of a brush.

Sincerely,

An English Major

That right there just earned you an A+!

Marney, dont take it personal.  There have been good points made on both sides.

FWIW, my daughter turned her nose up to college. She has had some incredible opportunities. Right now she is an admin for VPs of a very large corporation.  She works with good people but she tells me so many are really not too happy. 

Whats important is that your son loves what he is doing. Everything else is BS.

Son will be graduating this saturday, getting one of those degrees that some may call useless. PRTM with business and finance.  He is still living his dream on the field. He is happy, in the end, thats whats important.  

Swampboy posted:

playball2011 posted:

Wow Swampboy, u can tell someone is unemployable by looking at his resume. Maybe he's a wrong fit for a certain job after being interviewed  where specific ques are asked.  Some of the most gifted kids in class are the ones who only score so-so on tests. Let's hold judgement untill more  info is known.

maybe he wants to go into another field w grad degree. Many law students are English majors. Who knows this young mans real story. 

Well, yes. I was once in charge of hiring for a very large organization, and now I hire for the teams I supervise at a smaller organization. Having seen a couple thousand resumes from new college grads looking for their first "real" job after school, I can often distinguish quickly between the young people for whom college was about enjoying the experience and the ones who were there to work to prepare themselves for adult responsibilities and adult opportunities. 

Thanks for reminding me that many unemployed English majors enroll in law school and incur additional debt to gain credentials in a field that is even more difficult to get established in than academia. It does reinforce my point, and it is gracious of you to offer it.

At the present time law school is considered a bad career choice unless attending the elite law schools or graduating at or near the top of the class in the law schools at the next level. The same currently applies to obtaining an MBA. Some undergraduate degrees require the student continue on to obtain an MA.

fanofgame posted:

5. "Make sure you pick good people to build your business with, as they'll determine 80 percent of your success. The best people are honest and have lots of enthusiasm. Don't worry too much about their level of experience when you're interviewing, as the right attitude always delivers much more than just experience."

6. "I built the business exactly the way my mother built and ran her family. I wanted a replication of the big, happy family I grew up in. I wanted happy people having fun."

From Barb on shark tank

I think maybe there are people who think different 

 I disagree with your thinking on this.

The reality is 20% of the employees will create 80% of the company's success. The rest will typically achieve mediocrity and eventually move on to another company where they will stand around the water cooler and complain rather than acheive. Our company had better percentages. But I stated the norm across the business world.

Please read the 9 rules from the Japanese History of the Samuari. It was the principle of conduct

for my 33 years in International baseball and business.

Bob