Poll of the Day > Unpopular opinion: the world would be a more professional and better place if...

(+) Yeah! (+)

Only those born from 4.0 graduates, that have had 4.0s since pre-preschool through high school, can now attend college.

How do we employ everyone else?
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SunWuKung420 posted...

Only those born from 4.0 graduates, that have had 4.0s since pre-preschool through high school, can now attend college.

How do we employ everyone else?

By lowering educational standards, mostly. Go back to the days where high school was the minimum expected education for most jobs.

_AdjI_ posted...

By lowering educational standards, mostly. Go back to the days where high school was the minimum expected education for most jobs.

That's a thing. Plenty of super smart people that not want to do homework for a gpa. Why are we punishing people who don't need to do homework and not supporting them in their endeavors instead of bogging them down?
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kangolcone posted...

Imagine the crunch that would happen in the medical field.

Theres already a crushing shortage of pediatricians in rural areas. Now we would just have less pediatricians.

So the world would be a more professional and better place if we had more children who were unable to receive adequate medical care?

Explain how this is better exactly?

Children should take professionally administered IQ tests, those who score highest should be prioritized when it comes to healthcare etc

_AdjI_ posted...

kangolcone posted...

Explain how this is better exactly?

He won't. Making poorly-thought-out controversial statements and suggestions about society is kind of TC's schtick. I can't tell if he's trolling or genuinely this clueless, but either way, don't hold your breath for an intelligent response to pointing out the obvious flaws in the idea.

Name one time ive made a controversial statement or suggestion about society outside of this topic.

MICHALECOLE posted...

Only the top three in each class should get a credit for the class

No. Ridiculous. Ideally all students will have 4.0. Realistically, about 70-87% will. Singling out "the top three" when the grand majority of students have a 4.0 is nonsense
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Greenfox111 posted...

No. Ridiculous. Ideally all students will have 4.0. Realistically, about 70-87% will. Singling out "the top three" when the grand majority of students have a 4.0 is nonsense

So like someone said before, you just want them to lower the grade requirements, which in turn will devalue a 4.0 and result in overall more people with it, but they won't be anywhere near as competent as people who already have such a grade.

Greenfox111 posted...

colleges didn't give you a degree unless you graduate with a 4.0. How can people be expected to be good at their job if they weren't even good at learning how to do their job? This new method would mean anyone with a degree would be legitimately knowledgeable about their profession. Too hard for you? then college isn't for you. Lazy but smart people would be FORCED to study more or fail miserably.

I know this is controversial but I really think it would generally improve the world.

Wed then have to go o standardize teaching methods. My lab partner and I had different lecture professors this semester. She failed lecture but aced lab. I aced both. It's primarily because my Prof taught us what we need to know in order to work in the medical field and had us practice and study that for 4 months. Hers expected them to know everything in the book and have it committed to memory on a weekly basis.
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Want people to be more professional? Teach professionalism in school, not gender studies, underwater basket-weaving, and outdated sociology classes as gen-eds.
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SunWuKung420 posted...

Greenfox111 posted...

Well maybe they should make cashiers get 4.0 degrees too, that way they will be more effrctive than self checkouts

Then they could pay those cashiers $40 an hour.

Edit: It's obvious you didn't an A in English.

It's obvious you didn't an A in English.

-SunWuKung420
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Gunsandredroses posted...

Want people to be more professional? Teach professionalism in school, not gender studies, underwater basket-weaving, and outdated sociology classes as gen-eds.

because they learn what we currently teach in schools, right?

Not sure why TC would want this. Based on this topic there's no way he'd get a 4.0 in anything.
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Greenfox111 posted...

Name one time ive made a controversial statement or suggestion about society outside of this topic.

Name one time you've made a suggestion about society that you were actually able to defend (with links, so we can assess that defense through less biased standards).

_AdjI_ posted...

Greenfox111 posted...

Name one time ive made a controversial statement or suggestion about society outside of this topic.

Name one time you've made a suggestion about society that you were actually able to defend (with links, so we can assess that defense through less biased standards).

I havent, thats why it cant be my shtick
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Not being able to find a statement you were able to defend does not indicate that your schtick isn't making statements you aren't able to defend.

You know damn well what i meant
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kangolcone posted...

Also, I would assume that this should apply to college admittance as well? Only those with 4.0 get to enter college.

Only those who get a 4.0 in middle school get to enter high school.
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Greenfox111 posted...

You know damn well what i meant

Do I? Being a poor simpleton with less than a 4.0 GPA, how could I possibly comprehend the inner thoughts of such a brilliant mind?

Good point, sorry to expect so much from you
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More specifically, though, you've definitely made topics on the subjects of dating, gender roles, and women in general that I'd say were about as clueless as this one. Enough that I'd call it a schtick, at least.

kangolcone posted...

Moreover, plumbing isnt a low paying job. The average for plumbers is 55k. It does not surprise me though that somebody who overvalued GPA this much would look at all manual labor or trade jobs with disdain.

Or even a low level job. It's a skilled trade.

Otherwise the topic is probably intended as a joke.

_AdjI_ posted...

From a corporate perspective, self-checkouts are preferable not because they're more effective than cashiers, but because they cost less thanks to not needing to do silly things like eat or pay rent.

Which is the same thing as being more effective.

kangolcone posted...

Imagine the crunch that would happen in the medical field.

Theres already a crushing shortage of pediatricians in rural areas. Now we would just have less pediatricians.

So the world would be a more professional and better place if we had more children who were unable to receive adequate medical care?

Explain how this is better exactly?

And you can blame a large part of that on the US's rigorous standards where, ironically enough, the shortfall is often covered by medical professionals from nations with less rigorous standards

kangolcone posted...

Ok lets assume that 90% of people dont get 4.0. Who replaces all the teachers who no longer have degrees? Are we only keeping the teachers who got 4.0s in college and just ballooning a high school class to 100-120 children.

Again, the standards would be lowered (or they'd add new grades to turn 4.0 into a minimum).

SunWuKung420 posted...

_AdjI_ posted...

By lowering educational standards, mostly. Go back to the days where high school was the minimum expected education for most jobs.

That's a thing. Plenty of super smart people that not want to do homework for a gpa. Why are we punishing people who don't need to do homework and not supporting them in their endeavors instead of bogging them down?

"Smart" people who aren't willing to work hard don't exactly bring much value to the table. And very few people want to do homework. More importantly, most people who make excuses for a low GPA are idiots who only think they're intelligent. Because they never put the effort in to really test themselves, they can cling to that illusion.
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Zeus posted...

Which is the same thing as being more effective.

Wouldnt more effective consider more than just cost? Like speed, for example. It can be fast with a cashier if you have a basket full or stuff. Even half full. You can load up everything on the conveyor belt while the cashier is ringing stuff up. Which could be faster...
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Getting an A- drops your GPA, I never got anything lower then an A- and graduated with a 3.97 which was very frustrating.

Sadly my college had 30% of the grade based on team assignments, there was pretty much no way I could have done better then I did. So yeah, unless you change the grading system, even making it something like a 3.5 GPA would probably not work.

I would be ok with a min of a 3.0 GPA in order to get student loans/grants etc though, at least that would motivate the other students to actually DO THEIR FREAKING WORK instead of just trying to cost by with C's based mostly on the efforts of team mates.

My school had something like 20% of the grade based on participation, 30% on team assignments and 50% on individual assignments, papers etc.

A lazy student could basically turn in total crap for their own work, get only 20% on average on individual assignments and still pass the class with a C as long as the team assignments were A's and the student participated (showed up for class etc).

You would probably not be amazed at how many lazy students there were that took advantage of that.
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yeah group assignments need to go out the window
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Zeus posted...

Which is the same thing as being more effective.

No, it's one element of effectiveness. Specifically, cost-effectiveness. Most of the time, they don't do the job any faster or more accurately than a human cashier would. They just do the job well enough, such that employing them to cut costs is appealing for managers.

Furthermore, regardless of how we're defining "effective," you need to look at the context. TC suggested that cashiers should operate more effectively in order to avoid being replaced by self-serve ones. Therefore, any facet of effectiveness that a cashier can't improve on (no matter what they do, they're still going to need to eat) is irrelevant. Try to pay attention.

Zeus posted...

"Smart" people who aren't willing to work hard don't exactly bring much value to the table.

And GPA doesn't particularly reflect how willing somebody is to work hard. It mostly just reflects how willing somebody is to put in the required effort to memorize material for a one-time exam, which is a very specific task that they're choosing to work hard on (one whose only reward isn't particularly valuable, no less).

Greenfox111 posted...

yeah group assignments need to go out the window

If you want new professionals to never have had experience working in a group before, sure. You may be surprised to find out, however, that collaborative work is pretty common in most professional fields, and not knowing how to work effectively with other people makes an employee pretty useless.

_AdjI_ posted...

And GPA doesn't particularly reflect how willing somebody is to work hard. It mostly just reflects how willing somebody is to put in the required effort to memorize material for a one-time exam, which is a very specific task that they're choosing to work hard on (one whose only reward isn't particularly valuable, no less).

Greenfox111 posted...
yeah group assignments need to go out the window

If you want new professionals to never have had experience working in a group before, sure. You may be surprised to find out, however, that collaborative work is pretty common in most professional fields, and not knowing how to work effectively with other people makes an employee pretty useless.

Most classes post AA require writing papers, creating programs etc (depends on the major obviously) and it's not just memorization at that point.

Team assignments meanwhile should be where your participation comes in, and not a primary part of your grade. In addition, you could have students work together as a team, then grade each team member individually based on their effort and work. This would still teach students how to work together, but if some of the students do almost no work, or turn in crap that another student has to totally redo in order to include it (and get a decent grade) they would get a lower grade on the team paper/assignment.

The way it works now, you are assigned a team, and the whole team is graded equally on the finished work. That does not work as there are waaaay to many students just trying to pass their classes which makes it very hard on the students actually trying to get/maintain a good GPA.
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LinkPizza posted...

Zeus posted...

Which is the same thing as being more effective.

Wouldnt more effective consider more than just cost? Like speed, for example. It can be fast with a cashier if you have a basket full or stuff. Even half full. You can load up everything on the conveyor belt while the cashier is ringing stuff up. Which could be faster...

Having one person "man" six registers instead of just one is a massive increase in efficiency. More generally, efficiency is about maximizing your returns. If you can achieve a similar (or better) result at a lower cost, it's more efficient.

_AdjI_ posted...

No, it's one element of effectiveness. Specifically, cost-effectiveness. Most of the time, they don't do the job any faster or more accurately than a human cashier would. They just do the job well enough, such that employing them to cut costs is appealing for managers.

...ultimately all business efficiency comes down to maximizing returns, thereby making cost effectiveness the most important metric. Having one clerk man multiple checkout lanes -- via self-checks -- is a far more effective use of labor.

_AdjI_ posted...

Furthermore, regardless of how we're defining "effective," you need to look at the context. TC suggested that cashiers should operate more effectively in order to avoid being replaced by self-serve ones. Therefore, any facet of effectiveness that a cashier can't improve on (no matter what they do, they're still going to need to eat) is irrelevant. Try to pay attention.

Not at all, they'd either need to operate more efficiently than the self-checks or their job solely becomes managing self-checks. That or the role of the cashier would need to fundamentally change to outpace the value provided by self-checks.

_AdjI_ posted...

And GPA doesn't particularly reflect how willing somebody is to work hard. It mostly just reflects how willing somebody is to put in the required effort to memorize material for a one-time exam, which is a very specific task that they're choosing to work hard on (one whose only reward isn't particularly valuable, no less).

This just in -- You can work hard without working hard! >_> At any rate, if anything you're supporting my argument because you're demonstrating that the threshold is on the lower side so anybody unwilling to keep up is that much worse and therefore less valuable.
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Zeus posted...

This just in -- You can work hard without working hard!

Being willing to work hard to memorize material for an exam has very little predictive ability for being willing to work hard in any actual job, especially when you consider that studying for an exam is done entirely on one's own time and the only consequence for slacking off is a lower GPA (which, as this topic has established, isn't much of a consequence).

Zeus posted...

Not at all, they'd either need to operate more efficiently than the self-checks

Which is largely beyond their control because of their need to be paid enough to eat. I said this already.

wolfy42 posted...

Most classes post AA require writing papers, creating programs etc (depends on the major obviously) and it's not just memorization at that point.

Exams are still a pretty huge chunk of GPA, and getting a good grade on a paper is more a matter of being able to write well than any other skill that would be applicable in a professional setting. In the case of something like computer science, the course work does actually reflect what's being done in the field (to a certain extent), so that is a notable exception to this. Many trade schools would be similar in that regard.

Basically, unless you feel you could cite some of your course work as experience in applying for a job, it's kind of dumb to act like your grade on that course work has any bearing on your ability to perform in said job.

I'd rather see colleges give students hands on training where applicable. Many people myself included learn better by doing rather than reading/studying/listening to lectures and taking written tests.
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_AdjI_ posted...

Being willing to work hard to memorize material for an exam has very little predictive ability for being willing to work hard in any actual job, especially when you consider that studying for an exam is done entirely on one's own time and the only consequence for slacking off is a lower GPA (which, as this topic has established, isn't much of a consequence).

You mean there's no correlation between somebody not wanting to put in a minimal amount of effort to their willingness to put in a lot more effort?

_AdjI_ posted...

Which is largely beyond their control because of their need to be paid enough to eat. I said this already.

Not necessarily true. When a person and a machine operate roughly the same, it does strictly comes down to relative cost and automation will win. However, a good clerk can provide value beyond just ringing somebody out, whether it's upselling, improving retention, etc. And, of course, self-checks have a lot of upfront expenses and require a lot of volume to justify the cost.

Granted, for all the talk of automation, I'm not sure *any* retailer has gone completely with self-checks at this point.

_AdjI_ posted...

Exams are still a pretty huge chunk of GPA, and getting a good grade on a paper is more a matter of being able to write well than any other skill that would be applicable in a professional setting.

Because being able to coherently express your thoughts and demonstrate an argument has no correlation with anything in a professional setting?
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Zeus posted...

You mean there's no correlation between somebody not wanting to put in a minimal amount of effort to their willingness to put in a lot more effort?

A minimal amount of effort when the alternative is having fun, versus a larger amount of effort when the alternative is being unemployed. Work and school are very different environments.

Zeus posted...

Because being able to coherently express your thoughts and demonstrate an argument has no correlation with anything in a professional setting?

In a formal academic sense? Not really, outside of research positions or other jobs where publishing academic works is the focus. Written professional communications follow different rules, as do informal discussions. Arguing on the Internet like this develops more useful professional communication skills than academic writing does.

SunWuKung420 posted...

Greenfox111 posted...

How can people be expected to be good at their job if they weren't even good at learning how to do their job?

Are you talking about colleges or trade schools? Most college grads I've had to train didn't know shit about the jobs they were hired to do.

Well, I suppose there ARE a lot of college grads having to flip burgers...
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_AdjI_ posted...

A minimal amount of effort when the alternative is having fun, versus a larger amount of effort when the alternative is being unemployed. Work and school are very different environments.

Both have an effort requirement and a payoff. Just like nobody wants to get fired, nobody wants to get kicked out of school.

_AdjI_ posted...

In a formal academic sense? Not really, outside of research positions or other jobs where publishing academic works is the focus. Written professional communications follow different rules, as do informal discussions. Arguing on the Internet like this develops more useful professional communication skills than academic writing does.

Now you're just pigeonholing.
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Zeus posted...

Both have an effort requirement and a payoff. Just like nobody wants to get fired, nobody wants to get kicked out of school.

And the threshold of work for getting fired tends to be higher than the threshold for flunking out. Again, there's also a considerable difference between deciding to work on your own time and deciding to work on somebody else's time.

As has been said multiple times in this thread: If GPA had any predictive value for job performance, employers would ask for it. They don't, so it doesn't. You can try to make a logical connection between the two all you want, but at the end of the day, the results tell you what the reality of the matter is, and no amount of attempted reasoning is going to change that.

Zeus posted...

Now you're just pigeonholing.

Not really. Academic writing is very different from other forms of communication. If nothing else, you don't have word counts to meet in other media.

Zeus posted...

LinkPizza posted...

Zeus posted...

Which is the same thing as being more effective.

Wouldnt more effective consider more than just cost? Like speed, for example. It can be fast with a cashier if you have a basket full or stuff. Even half full. You can load up everything on the conveyor belt while the cashier is ringing stuff up. Which could be faster...

Having one person "man" six registers instead of just one is a massive increase in efficiency. More generally, efficiency is about maximizing your returns. If you can achieve a similar (or better) result at a lower cost, it's more efficient.

Yes. I understand that part. What Im saying is thats only one part of effectiveness, though. There are other parts, too. For example, i mentioned speed. Depending on how many items you have, it could easily be much faster to go to a regular line. And sometimes, people have no idea what theyre doing. Sure, its more cost effective to have one person man 6 registers. But it would probably be faster to have 6 manned registers. Which is also another part of being effective. And the lines would probably be shorter.

Zeus posted...

Granted, for all the talk of automation, I'm not sure *any* retailer has gone completely with self-checks at this point.

Amazon has. They only have one store so far, but all of them will be cashierless, according to them. Which means a lot of jobs that wont have for other people. They say itll be fine due to having people stock the back room. But stores that have cashiers also have people stock the back room. So, yeah. Still lost jobs...
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_AdjI_ posted...

And the threshold of work for getting fired tends to be higher than the threshold for flunking out.

Meaning it's harder to get fired than flunk out? idk, that really depends on the job. It's certainly true of teaching and most union labor.

_AdjI_ posted...

As has been said multiple times in this thread: If GPA had any predictive value for job performance, employers would ask for it. They don't, so it doesn't. You can try to make a logical connection between the two all you want, but at the end of the day, the results tell you what the reality of the matter is, and no amount of attempted reasoning is going to change that.

...lolwut? A lot of employers DO ask for and look at GPAs for recent grads. It's only when somebody has been in the workforce for years that it stops being a thing or, at least, becomes a less frequent occurrence although it *still* happens. Hell, when my brother was looking for another job in sales, one of the listings wanted 5+ years of sales experience AND asked for both a high school and college GPA.

_AdjI_ posted...

If nothing else, you don't have word counts to meet in other media.

That's more freshman shit with word counts.

LinkPizza posted...

Yes. I understand that part. What Im saying is thats only one part of effectiveness, though. There are other parts, too. For example, i mentioned speed. Depending on how many items you have, it could easily be much faster to go to a regular line. And sometimes, people have no idea what theyre doing. Sure, its more cost effective to have one person man 6 registers. But it would probably be faster to have 6 manned registers. Which is also another part of being effective. And the lines would probably be shorter.

You're thinking of speed for the customer rather than overall turnover. And six self-checks will usually have less of a line than two or three manned registers. And you don't need to worry about having a man at register doing nothing (ie, wasted labor = inefficiency) when machines are involved. That's why smaller retailers have their clerks also do stockwork between customers.

The main perk for in-person vs automation is, in theory, less theft.
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Maybe it different. Here, the self checkout lines are longer because its a slower process. Not to mention half the people dont know how to use them. For the most efficiency, youd probably need both. Though, if self checkout went away forever, I wouldnt cry...

And, yeah. Its probably pretty easy to steal using self-checkout...

Do people really ask recent grads for grades. I have never heard that. And a lot of my friends are/were recent grads.
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Zeus posted...

Meaning it's harder to get fired than flunk out?

Vice versa. That was an awkward sentence to word; I'm not surprised it didn't come out right.

Zeus posted...

...lolwut? A lot of employers DO ask for and look at GPAs for recent grads. It's only when somebody has been in the workforce for years that it stops being a thing or, at least, becomes a less frequent occurrence although it *still* happens. Hell, when my brother was looking for another job in sales, one of the listings wanted 5+ years of sales experience AND asked for both a high school and college GPA.

It's not something I've seen much of. Citing Dean's List or similar accomplishments on your resume can be a boon, if you've got it, but specific GPA? Not so much. The fact that the listing your brother was looking at wanted his high school GPA is pretty ridiculous, given that after four years of college and 5+ years of experience, that was a decade ago and therefore far too old to be reflective of anything.

Zeus posted...

That's more freshman s*** with word counts.

Most of undergrad, really. Even without explicit word counts, academic writing in general puts more emphasis on elaboration than is appropriate in other modes of communication. That's all well and good for academic writing, since that's its purpose, but calling that practice for communicating professionally (where brevity is much more valued) is a bit of a stretch.

LinkPizza posted...

Do people really ask recent grads for grades.

....yes. Especially because recent grads usually don't have much relevant work experience so it serves as an indication of potential.
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Zeus posted...

LinkPizza posted...

Do people really ask recent grads for grades.

....yes. Especially because recent grads usually don't have much relevant work experience so it serves as an indication of potential.

Maybe its a location thing. Or a case by case thing. I havent heard of anyone asking from it... at least in my circle of friends, and former co-workers (from the people who left the Air Force for other jobs)...
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_AdjI_ posted...

It's not something I've seen much of. Citing Dean's List or similar accomplishments on your resume can be a boon, if you've got it, but specific GPA? Not so much. The fact that the listing your brother was looking at wanted his high school GPA is pretty ridiculous, given that after four years of college and 5+ years of experience, that was a decade ago and therefore far too old to be reflective of anything.

I have seen several employers ask for high school GPA but they obviously don't hire on it. It is more of a test of your documentation skill than anything - leaving it blank would be more of a mark against you than if you put down a low GPA. I mean, it is theoretically possible there's some employer out there gathering a "Peaked in High School" task force or something, but the idea is too absurd to think it is widespread.

wah_wah_wah posted...

_AdjI_ posted...

It's not something I've seen much of. Citing Dean's List or similar accomplishments on your resume can be a boon, if you've got it, but specific GPA? Not so much. The fact that the listing your brother was looking at wanted his high school GPA is pretty ridiculous, given that after four years of college and 5+ years of experience, that was a decade ago and therefore far too old to be reflective of anything.

I have seen several employers ask for high school GPA but they obviously don't hire on it. It is more of a test of your documentation skill than anything - leaving it blank would be more of a mark against you than if you put down a low GPA. I mean, it is theoretically possible there's some employer out there gathering a "Peaked in High School" task force or something, but the idea is too absurd to think it is widespread.

The most Ive been asked for is the degree itself...
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LinkPizza posted...

wah_wah_wah posted...

_AdjI_ posted...

It's not something I've seen much of. Citing Dean's List or similar accomplishments on your resume can be a boon, if you've got it, but specific GPA? Not so much. The fact that the listing your brother was looking at wanted his high school GPA is pretty ridiculous, given that after four years of college and 5+ years of experience, that was a decade ago and therefore far too old to be reflective of anything.

I have seen several employers ask for high school GPA but they obviously don't hire on it. It is more of a test of your documentation skill than anything - leaving it blank would be more of a mark against you than if you put down a low GPA. I mean, it is theoretically possible there's some employer out there gathering a "Peaked in High School" task force or something, but the idea is too absurd to think it is widespread.

The most Ive been asked for is the degree itself...

It depends on the field you're going into. If it is an entry level job that a high schooler could reasonably be hired into, then it's probably going to be asked. Or if it's one of those government positions where they ask you everything right down to what underwear you're wearing.