I've been in College for 4 years and have only gone to three different "College parties." It isn't what I wanted to do and has never been a big interest of mine. I've also worked five different jobs while attending College and this has been one reason why my GPA isn't above a 3.5(Not that it really matters that much, honestly).

If you are seriously studying 60-80 per week in a subject that you don't even enjoy just for the sake of getting high grades(With no intention of Graduate school) then this is just plain stupid.

If graduate schools didn't care about my GPA then I probably wouldn't have above a 3.0- A lot of times the GPA doesn't even correlate to what I have learned in the course; but more so towards how I can slave towards what a certain Professor is looking for.

I will say that I could probably still get into graduate school with a little lower GPA and obsessing over marks on a paper is no way to life your live. I'm an Economics major by the way.

However, I am 27 years old and I can definitely identify with Jon. I agree with the sandbox analogy and think that college students underestimate the significance of this 'trial' period. I say as long as you have the opportunity (and money earned, not given), and it will not permanently damage your future, then try it. At least then you will not have to live with the 'what if's?' because life comes at you fast and you can't always take a 'make up.'

I was a math/civil engineering major and I too spent many 20-hour days studying to get that great GPA. I didn't have much of a social life to speak of, although I was involved in various honor societies. After working for 4 years I have found that I could have gotten to my current point (data monkey working for people with 20+ years experience by day, pizza delivery driver by night)-using half the energy. nobody really cares how smart you were in school – you have to create 'perceived' value for them. Otherwise you will be known as a 'book-smart' person who cant get the job done.

With that said, i do think that if I had toned it down a bit on the studies, maybe I would have had time to develop a more well-rounded social network (and possibly get more relevant work experience). If the network panned out then maybe 'party friends' could have became clients one day. My opinion is that the association with these friends would have been strategically much more valuable (and comforting!) to me than the ability to prove that every vector space has a basis, or how to solve second-order partial differential equations. I have not needed 1/4 of the stuff I learned in school, and I work in a technical profession. I know that sounds rough, but really, the company only cares about bottom line, and if your network allows you to land a $1M project then you have solidified your position more than any clever (smart) design could have. So my conclusion is that yes, grades can matter, but I think the social network is a much more powerful tool when it comes to making money in the workforce.