What?! You mean it’s only a 3.93 ?! Grrrr.
The 4.0 isn’t everything. It certainly isn’t the main thing I look for when recruiting interns.
It’s the “soft skills” that count more and will carry you further:
- professionalism
- work ethic
- character
- integrity
- honesty
- kindness
- team-player
- critical thinking
- mental/emotional toughness
- mental/emotional readiness
- maturity
- communication skills
- bed-side manner (clinical)
- proactivity (don’t wait to be “invited” to get something done)
- attention to details
- common sense
- empathy
- organization
- public speaking
- ability to teach (important in clinicals/healthcare school or MS or PhD)
- etc.
Where do you stand? Make a scale of 1-5 (or whatever makes sense to you), and make a list of these “soft skills”. Remove yourself from your situation, and honestly appraise yourself in each of these areas. Don’t cut yourself down (extreme), and don’t feed your ego.
For those qualities that might be a bit low (you need to work on these), brainstorm 2-3 ways that you can work on and improve your “score”. What can you do right now? Work on one of these for the week, and these challenges will add up to your benefit.
When you ask for a letter of recommendation/reference, you don’t need an instructor to say you earned 4.0’s. You need the instructor to speak and attest to these soft skills. Starting a class (especially if you think that instructor will be instrumental to your reference list), make sure you stand out from the crowd. Make all these soft skills very obvious. You want the instructor to remember you by name several quarters later, and remember you by the person you are (which is NOT your grade).
