We asked four successful grads do P’s get degrees? Here’s what they said.
- Brendan - Paralegal at Freehills, Former congressional intern at the US Senate
- Maddy - Former Trainee at PwC, Westpac Graduate
- Lulu - Analyst at Quantium
- Simon - Analyst at Deloitte
Lulu: [laughs] There’s the common phrase that ‘P’s get degrees’, but they don’t necessarily correlate in getting an internship or a graduate role.
SIMON: P’s get you a certificate that says, like, ‘good intentions’, but that’s pretty much it.
MADDY: P’s get degrees, but P’s do not get grad jobs.
SIMON: Once you start your degree, that’s when you want to work hard. Like, that’s when you want to be trying to get results.
LULU: When you’re applying for these sorts of jobs, they often only take candidates that have at least a credit average.
SIMON: At the same time, marks only get you the interview.
LULU: So, if you do have a low GPA, it’s definitely still possible to get a job after uni. And there’s heaps of people who do it; it’s all about being really proactive with your applications and crafting a really good cover letter.
BRENDAN: We don’t want to focus too much on the marks, because, at the end of the day, whatever your marks are, companies all look for someone that’s a whole person; someone with all these different experiences around them. So I recommend - whatever field it is you’re in, whatever you’re interested in - do well. Whether that’s in the classroom, whether that’s outside the classroom. Try your best to do well.
SIMON: So there’s no point being a book nerd that doesn’t go out, doesn’t socialise, doesn’t get involved in extra-curricular things.
LULU: At the end of the day, your employers aren’t just looking at your grades that you’ve achieved at university; they’re also looking at whether you were a unit representative, or whether you’ve worked part time somewhere else throughout your degree. So it’s not all about your grades, but it is very important to still work really hard so that you can get those high results.
Update 1 June 2024: The disclaimer in the video is out of date. Student Super changed trustee from Tidswell to Diversa on 18 December 2020 and moved from Professional Super, a sub-fund of the Tidswell Master Superannuation Plan to Professional Super, a sub-fund of OneSuper on 1 June 2024. See the Significant Event Notice for more information.
