you don’t need good grades to succeed in tech

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

this publication is a place for me to reflect on productivity, health and tech, and drop unique opportunities in the space right to your inbox daily. if you’re new here, sign up to tune in! 💌 

btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: you don’t need good grades to succeed in tech 💻️ 

with the way the tech industry is progressing, there has been a gradual shift away from requiring university degrees, let alone perfect grades. big tech is an exception to this for now, but huge rising companies, like openai, don’t actually require a college degree. some don’t require any formal education background at all.

this is because the field for recruiting in tech has moved towards focusing on merit and actual work done in the space like personal projects. not to mention, the importance of being well-connected. 🕸️ 

i’m very happy with this change because most roles in tech have no use for the extensive theoretical backgrounds taught in a cs program in college. it requires actual problem solving skills and the ability to communicate. the shift also gives students more autonomy over our learning — we can learn through different projects in areas we’re passionate about, instead of being fed a textbook, while still achieving the later goal of working/innovating in the tech space.

so many students spend most of their time practicing leetcode problems rather than doing their coursework because there isn’t a need for it in order to actually secure an internship or job beyond maybe the prestige of a school in the moment. 🎓️ 

obviously, if you want to stay in school you need to keep up your grades to pass, but you really don’t have to be burning yourself out to get a 4.00 gpa in college to work in tech.

nobody cares about your grades anymore in tech. unless you want to do a masters afterwards — that requires good grades. however, if getting straight into industry after graduating is your goal, focus on getting experience in that industry and experimenting with your own projects instead of spending all-nighters doing flashcards on data structures. 🤓 

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