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This is certainly a tldr, so skip to cliff notes on the bottom. This also may come off as a brag post, and it's not meant to be. I'm looking for advice, both humorous and serious.

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I just graduated from college today, from a small private college in Western Massachusetts (Western New England College for those of you who know the area). I graduated with a 3.0 gpa, 3.2 major gpa. Major in Computer Science, minor in Mathematics.

And I feel depressed. Partly because my life is changing and I'm nervous, but the more pressing and more immediate situation is that I feel like my grades sucked. I'm certainly smart enough where I should have graduated cum laude or better, and I didn't. In fact, I fell quite short as you can see.

However, my ability to do it was there, and except for [censored] up sophomore year, I had good grades. 2.15 for fall semester of sophomore year blows, and spring semester wasn't much better

Because of this, I feel like I wasted my time at college, and should have gotten more out of the experience. I mostly lazed my way through school, getting good but not great grades, and having little to no social life.

I guess the main thing that got to me is that everyone in class knows me as an extremely smart person. I never really discussed my grades with anyone, so no one knew just how short I was of any type of distinguishing marks. And yet approximately 30 people came up to congratulate me, and every single one of them asked "where is your cum laude rope?" After about the 5th person it became extremely depressing. Our school is very small, so I have a relationship with the other computer science teachers, who don't know my grades as a whole, only what they gave me. And most of them too were surprised that I wasn't cum laude or better.

Anyways the whole thing has left a depressing taste in my mouth, and at this point I wish I could go back and repeat college, specifically sophomore year where I [censored] up.

On the bright side, I've got the best, highest job that I know of of anyone who graduated with a B.S. from the school, and what seems to be the most promising future. While random people came up to me surprised I wasn't cum laude, other cum laude's came up to me, surprised that they had beaten me. There were people who were surprised I didn't have a 3.8+, I left that kind of impression on people.

I feel good about the future, and am not sure if I'm letting this cum laude thing eat away at me too much when it doesn't really mean anything. After all, the only reason one goes to college is to party and have an awesome future. 1/2 ain't bad, is it?
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Cliff Notes: Graduated college, got good but not great grades. Feel like I wasted my time at college and could/should have done better.

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I can seriously relate. I was a "star" until college, where I really f'd up. The bad news is that it did mess with my mind for a while. The good news is that it really did not affect anything that matters.

Most jobs do not ask what grades you got. Hell, practically noone in life will ever ask what grades you got. And if you are worried about pursuing higher education, work for a few years and build up a decent resume; I was able to get into a top tier b-school and I'm doing well.

So try not to let it get to you, and learn from your "mistakes." College is really a life-growing experience more than anything else anyway. Just kick ass in the future!