Does Having a Job affect your GPA?

Group 1
Esteban Aguirre, Brenda Saenz
EDT 180B
Professor Lewallen
December 1, 2016

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As a group, we found out that we both had a job besides school also that we both were
working 20 hours plus some weeks. We decided to research if having a Job on or off campus
would affect your GPA. We came up with a list of questions to ask a variety of our peers. Those
questions were: What was your year in college? How many hours do you work (if you work)?
How many units are you taking? What is your GPA? What is your gender? In order to conduct
our survey, we use Google forms to create the survey. A total of 165 people conducted our survey
and here were our results.
In this second chart, we asked participants what their academic year was to somewhat
determine generally how mature someone might be by their class if the student came directly
from high school to college. Of the 165 responders, 47 were sophomore, 33 Juniors, 17
Freshman, and only 5 seniors. We asked if any post backs or grad students were attending just for
a more accurate survey and findings.

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In this second paragraph, we asked participants what their academic year was to
somewhat determine generally how mature someone might be by their class if the student came
directly from high school to college. Of the 165 responders, 47 were sophomore, 33 Juniors, 17
Freshman, and only 5 seniors. We asked if any post backs or grad students were attending just for
a more accurate survey and findings.

In the third survey, we asked what the students GPA was. This is so that when analyzing
data we could cross exam students GPAs vs their Units vs Hours they work. It seems that
freshman had higher GPAs at 3.35 average followed by seniors and Juniors. When analyzing this
further if gender was an issue, Brenda and I found that it was not with both GPAs being closely
similar at 3.19 and 3.20.

The purpose for this fourth chart was to cross examine units vs hours worked. We wanted
to know whether if having 18 units or 12 units effected a students studies in an given semester
which ultimately would affect his GPA. It appears that Freshman and Sophomore were taking
more units than Juniors or Seniors which begs the question if freshman were working less than
most Juniors or Seniors that could possibly affect the upper classmen grades.

It appears that out of the upper classmen that replied, most were working which could
possibly explain why their GPA could possibly be slightly lower. From this chart of data, most
freshman were not working which explains how the freshman had a high GPA than the other
classes. Also that majority of men that applied were not working. Comparing this chart verses the
units sophomores were taking, sophomores who are working and in the average amount of
classes could possibly explain why sophomores have the lowest GPAs while taking the most
units.

For this second to last chart our intentions were to see if the type of reflected on a
students grades. It seems that despite the job or type it really depends on the hours the student is
spending at the job site. Sophomores came in first in every category besides retail. This could be
accounted for the Sophomore class having the largest pool of responders and being female.

Based on the data collected and the chart when comparing the average hours that students
taking the survey were working it seems like Juniors are the ones working the most hours a
week. From the 23 Juniors who took the survey and were working they are averaging a total of
29 hours a week. The average hours Seniors worked per week were 27 hours. Though, there was
only 5 seniors working. Freshmans were the ones working less hours a week with 18 hours a
week. However, there was only 7 freshmans working. It seems like most students are only
working part-time jobs and their hours range from 18 to 29 hours per week, although there are
some exceptions for each class year and there are some students working fulltime. Juniors were
the ones with the maximum hours of 55 per week.

Overall based on the data we have at hand; it does not look like having a job affects the
GPA. When overviewing the participants, most had a GPA above a 3.0 while working more than
15 hours a week. But, a good GPA could be relative to different students meaning that one
student could say anything above a 2.5 is good where as another could say anything lower that
3.5 is unacceptable. When looking back on the whole process somethings that affected our
research were the limitations faced in Google docs spreadsheets. As a group, we were not able to
use the minimum ifs and maximum ifs functions that excel offers. Not using these functions
resulted in us not being able to answer questions and cross analyze data. I would recommend to
someone in the future is to compare the GPAs of those working to not working. I would also
recommend that we used excel instead of google docs due to google docs limitations.