Miami Dade College Needs To Reform Its GPA System

For the past few years, academia has encouraged students to study difficult academic subjects in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) field, such as computer science. 

While this is a great initiative that empowers students to pursue lucrative and fulfilling careers, a problem arises when students don’t perform well academically. 

It’s not rare for STEM students to accumulate poor grades in their first year of college, which impairs their cumulative grade point average even if the student changes their major. 

That can dramatically affect which universities the student can be accepted into once they complete their associate’s degree at Miami Dade College. 

One solution would be to implement a major GPA, which only calculates the GPA of courses that are required for your current major. 

That change would allow students to demonstrate they can be competent in their current studies even if they previously struggled in a different field. 

For instance, if a student attempts 72 credits before transferring, but 12 of those are low grades from their previous major, only the 60 credits from their current major would count for GPA purposes.

Adopting this benevolent calculation would open opportunities for many students.

Universities across the nation already utilize major GPA. Despite that, there are no options to include your major GPA on your MDC transcript. 

For now, students can manually calculate their major GPA and insert it into their resume. 

But students should not be punished for challenging themselves. The College should set a positive trend by adding options to include a major GPA on transcripts so students can have the best chance at getting into their dream university.