Escape the GPA Grind: Get a High Distinction with Less Stress and Bigger Wins
High GPA used to be a differentiating factor for find a job, but not anymore.
Win the HD, skip the overkill:
target the lower ends of HD, then use extra time into projects, internships, and interview prep.
High GPA used to be a differentiating factor for find a job, but not anymore.
Why? Because there are less tech jobs with more computer science students. Opportunities only exist for those who stands out from the crowd.
Now, high GPA become a minimum requirement instead of a comparative advantage.
Most university courses follow diminishing returns—each extra mark costs much more time and effort than the last.
There are many other things to invest your time with higher returns, such as interview preparation.
Hence, we need to pivot our strategy for university courses:
Do the minimal required to get an HD, to invest time into tasks with higher ROI. (Return of investment)
Turn day-one resource hunting into a superpower:
assemble past exams, forums, and archived labs into a weekly pipeline that cuts study time while raising marks
From my experiences, there are 5 proven tactics to secure a high GPA with minimal effort.
1. Understand the course structure top to bottom
Before the terms starts, research on how is the course structured and deliver. Especially focus on information related to assignment. This includes, the types (coding or quiz etc), the deadline and the percentage weighting.
Using this information, we can identify the ROI for each task, and focus on the tasks with high returns. For instance, the highest ROI task are weekly labs, and first 60% of coding assignment.
Once we have this road map, we can select tasks with high ROI, and get to HD with minimal effort.
2. Day 1 resources hunting
Now we know what to focus, let talk about how to study.
The most import tip is to research resources from day 1. This includes past papers, learning tips from student and tutor, recorded lecture etc.
Here is a non-exhaustive list on where to find resources:
Past paper / course notes: StuDoc, CourseHero
Advice from student: Discord servers (hosted by university societies), external forum (Reddit), and internal forums
Lecture / tutorial recordings: YouTube, course website from past term
Advice from staff: Teacher's office hour, emails
3. Learning in batch + learning in advance
Using the above resource, we can learn with personal schedules.
What I suggest is allocate 1 or 2 days per week, to watch the lecture and tutorials. (Preferably at 2X speed if watching recording)
Immediately after this, finished the weekly labs and homework, consolidating the knowledge learnt.
By doing this, the rest of the week is at your disposal.
If you do this earlier in the week, there is also a room to discuss / check your answer with your peers and tutors.
4. Assignment tips
The suggestion of "start assignments early" is repetitively raised by the teacher, but rarely anyone does this.
This strategy has high ROI. All the teaching staff are free to answer question, since the forum and their email inbox are both empty. They can answer any question within short time frame.
But, this strategy only applies to first 60-75% of assignment.
For the trickier parts of the assignment, it’s often better to wait for detailed discussions and resources to appear on the forum, rather than waste hours stuck on a single bug — unless you’re a genius, in which case scoring an HD will be a walk in the park.
If the course allows AI tools, exploit it. Since it is excellent with a project that has clear requirements (assignment specs). Even if they are not allowed, you can use it to brainstorm ideas and clarify your thinkings.
5. Exam tips
There is only one tips for computer science (or maths) exams, that is:
Do as much past paper and practice question that you can find, ideally under timed conditions. Then compile the mistake, review them many time before taking the actual exams.
You can do this with a group of peers , compare and discuss your mistakes in practice question.
If you are finding this article useful, you might also enjoy some of the other most popular posts from me this year:
Personal Branding 101: A How-To for Aspiring Entrepreneurs and Job Hunters in 3 Steps
The Gold Rush for Solo Entrepreneurs & Indie Hackers in 2025
Stack the deck with objective courses:
favour clear rubrics and grind-able workloads over subjective marking that caps WAM unpredictably
The above tips would be useless if you don't do this: Pick the courses that can achieve high marks.
There are three types of courses.
The first type are easy courses with light material, and lenient marking. But the downside is the knowledge you learnt from these course may not be useful in the industry. These "WAM boosters" are useful if you want to get to or maintain HD with low effort.
Examples: PHYS1110, MATH3411
The other type is you can get ha high mark as long as you put in the work to grind. These are usually the course that teach applicable knowledge, and give you advantage in the industry.
Examples: COMP3121, COMP6080
The third type of courses are courses with subjective marking and historical high number of below HD marks. (Usually courses with essay components). If you wish to get to HD with minimal effort, try to avoid them unless it is compulsory or useful.
Examples: Some COMM courses
The course structure and material may change overtime. Therefore, before select them, evaluate the course yourself from resources in part 2, decide whether it is worth while or not.
TL;DR
Aim for the minimum HD marks—don’t waste time chasing perfection when it pays exponentially less.
Hunt for high-value resources from the moment the term starts, batch your study for efficiency, and always start assignments early to get fast feedback.
Choose classes with objective and grindable grading, avoid subjective essays, and use your “saved” time on projects, internships, and interview prep to really stand out in the job hunt.
Conclusion
A high GPA is now the bare minimum — no longer a golden ticket. But with the right course selection and study strategy, it’s achievable without excessive time or effort.
Also, remember to embrace the ride — university is as much about the journey as the destination.