How do I explain a bad grade in one of major courses to a potential employer??

I enjoy programming and I recieved a B in Intro to Visual Basic and B's the other 2 Information Technology courses I've taken. I had a difficult time in Database Management Systems. We used the Oracle SQL platform to build and 'drop' databases and then rebuild them. It was a very difficult course for me and a lot of the work was time consuming! I ended up getting a 'D' and my goal is to land a programming job. I think my odds will be low now because of this D. My advisor said I can take the course again, but it'll cost $1,700. I don't have that kind of money. She told me if I take it another school it will transfer in but only as an elective and the D will still show on my transcript. How do I explain this bad grade to a potential employer?

 

Often an employer is more concerned with degree than grades, how you come across in interview, experience outside of work ( are you a motivated team player ), and what skills you have. Grades can matter but it's not the only thing tha matters.

 

I honestly wouldn't bother trying to redo it provided that your GPA is otherwise decent and the D earns you credit for the course at your school. Just do well in your other courses and include your overall GPA on your resume. If you decide to go to grad school and that school has a problem with the grade, take a similar course at a CC and transfer it in.

 

If your new employer is looking at your grades course by course, go find a new place to work, because it means they are focused on to much detail and are going to micro manage everything.

Or, go over their annual report with them line by line and have them explain what this $37k of 'entertainment' was...

 

Usually employers don't care about your GPA neither. They only care whether you have a legit degree. In the academia employment is different...if you don't plan to teach, you have nothing to worry about our bad grade.

 

Almost no employer is going to ask to see individual course grades.

BUT

If you are serious about a career as a programmer, you will bust your @$$ to learn and understand SQL. Most of the programming jobs out there are in some way related to getting data into or out of relational databases. Most shops don't have a full time DBA writing queries for you, and even if you land somewhere that does, you are going to have to be able to speak intelligently with him/her in order to communicate your requirements. I'm not saying you need to spend $1700 and take the course again, but you do need to do something so that when you land in front of somebody like me for a job interview, you don't give me a blank stare when I ask you the difference between inner and outer joins.

Not trying to be buzzkill here, but most programmers end up as business application developers, and most business application developers use RDBMS systems every single day. You need to know this stuff if you want to be taken seriously.

 

Fortunato is exactly the right. The question's not about the D on your transcript. The question is about how well you'll do when you're standing in front of a whiteboard trying to impress a prospective employer during an interview. Then about how well you'll do when you're writing complicated SQL day after day once you land a job. The problem isn't that you got a bad grade. The problem is that you didn't learn something that's going to be really important for your career if you plan to be a serious programmer.