"I do not know of a single person at the university who could not achieve a 3.5 if he or she only bothered to focus."
This is total bullshit. First, there are many people that barely made it into college (most of whom aren't in computer science/engineering), and no matter how much they worked, could not get a 3.5. Second, by saying "if he/she only bothered to focus," you're claiming that everyone who doesn't get a 3.5 is careless, lazy, or both.
Everyone on this forum could achieve a karma rating of 3,000. And for those of you who don't believe that 3,000 is a fair cutoff, I would challenge you by saying this: I have been on HN for over a year, and I do not know of a single person on HN who could not achieve 3,000 if he or she only bothered to focus.
The reason I don't have a 3.5GPA is the same reason I don't have 3,000 karma: I enjoy both school and HN, but there is a diminishing rate of return for effort. If I do the minimum amount of effort in school to get a 2.75, then work for 40 hours a week at my company, and still hang out with my friends, I really have no regret that I never "bothered" to get a 3.5.
Grade point averages are a result of intelligence, commitment, and personal priorities. Simplifying them the way that you do is both crass and incorrect.
It depends on the school as well. The "3.5 cutoff" is the result of massive grade inflation in recent years. By comparison, my school, Harvey Mudd, has it such that 3.0 is the cutoff for the Dean's list. This seems absurdly low by comparison to most schools, yet doesn't it seem ridiculous for everyone even mildly competent to graduate with a B+ or above?
The current system encourages schools to raise grades solely to get more people to pass the 3.5 cutoffs, allowing them to say that more graduates got good jobs, creating a grade inflation feedback loop.
Perfectly valid comparison: both karma rating on HN and GPA are largely irrelevant numbers that have little bearing on how good of a programmer you are. Both numbers would, to the layman, suggest some kind of authority, but in reality do not.
Both numbers are useful for theoretically filtering for the best, but in reality... do not.
Wow, the more I think of it, the better this analogy gets!
Are you really saying that the grades you get in college courses are even remotely equivalent to a measure of how much random anonymous people agree with you on the internet? Granted, my GPA is much better than my karma, but I still don't see how thinking about math or CS problem sets all day is anything like filling the internet with your opinions/favorite links?
"I do not know of a single person at the university who could not achieve a 3.5 if he or she only bothered to focus."
This is total bullshit. First, there are many people that barely made it into college (most of whom aren't in computer science/engineering), and no matter how much they worked, could not get a 3.5. Second, by saying "if he/she only bothered to focus," you're claiming that everyone who doesn't get a 3.5 is careless, lazy, or both.
Everyone on this forum could achieve a karma rating of 3,000. And for those of you who don't believe that 3,000 is a fair cutoff, I would challenge you by saying this: I have been on HN for over a year, and I do not know of a single person on HN who could not achieve 3,000 if he or she only bothered to focus.
The reason I don't have a 3.5GPA is the same reason I don't have 3,000 karma: I enjoy both school and HN, but there is a diminishing rate of return for effort. If I do the minimum amount of effort in school to get a 2.75, then work for 40 hours a week at my company, and still hang out with my friends, I really have no regret that I never "bothered" to get a 3.5.
Grade point averages are a result of intelligence, commitment, and personal priorities. Simplifying them the way that you do is both crass and incorrect.