In light of rampant grade inflation on campuses, Michigan State University student Emily Jenks offers a refreshingly different view on grades.

…Employers don’t look for good grades — they look for hard workers.

Having a degree is just the beginning when being considered for a job. There’s going to be a bunch of other graduates with the same degree clambering to get the same position you are. What puts you above the rest isn’t if you got a 4.0 and they got a 3.0 — it’s going to be your experience and work ethic.

The way I see it, grades are a means to an end. Good grades are great, and might help you get into graduate school and they look good on a résumé. But if you show up to a job interview and all you can say is that you four-pointed your classes, there’s a chance you will be overlooked because other applicants have more life experience.

I doubt my grades were the first thing my employer considered when hiring me. He probably was more preoccupied with making sure I had the talent and the capability to work hard.

As final exams loom on the semester’s horizon, everyone seems to be getting to that frenzied stage of “oh sh*!, finals are here and I haven’t studied yet.”

Take a deep breath, frazzled Spartans. Finals suck, but they aren’t the be-all, end-all. I know a lot of classes emphasize on test scores, and if you’re good at taking exams like I am, good for you. But real-world situations will ask you to think critically and do your best, not bubble in the correct answer.