Gettin' the A

I love how college really isn't about getting the A. Well, for some people it is. But those people will always exist. I mean for the professors, most of the students, and most importantly, employers. I get the impression that everybody wants you to do well, and obviously it would be great if you got an A, but it's not necessarily what they're looking for. They're looking to see what classes you've taken, to see if you've challenged yourself, to see if you have skills they're looking for and skills maybe others don't have.

I can't help but feel like I'm winning college.

I was reflecting on the electives I took this year. Medicinal Chemistry for my advanced chemistry elective, and Business Issues for Engineers for my engineering elective. Medicinal Chemistry really educated me about the pharmaceutical industry in ways I could have never predicted. I got a really great understanding of what goes in to discovering a drug, improving a drug, getting it patented, and how things like intellectual property and health care affects the industry. I am so uber prepared for my internship this summer and I feel like I lucked in to it.

And then of course Business Issues for Engineers (from here on out referred to as BIES). I didn't even know there was such a thing as an "income statement" before this class, and now I can read it and understand what my impact as an engineer is on every line. I understand things like how companies choose customers, how they decide how much money to spend on advertising, how to analyze how they're doing financially, how to analyze the industry.

I got a pretty weak B- in Medicinal Chemistry, and I'm looking at something similar for BIES, but I really don't care. I struggled through the classes because the information was so new to me, but I think it's going to be invaluable to the rest of my career. I'm more prepared than other people who took easy classes and got A's, that's for sure.

I can't help but feel like employers get that, too. Here's hopin' anyways!