You always want to do well, but if you don't do well early, you can at least point to improvement in your later semesters as you "got the hang of" college. Thi

You always want to do well, but if you don't do well early, you can at least point to improvement in your later semesters as you "got the hang of" college. This improvement is also helpful for graduate schools, although a magic improvement senior year is not as good as steady improvement over the years. Traditionally, full-time hiring is complete for good employees (in all disciplines) by the winter break of the fourth (senior) year, where there's some clause that you can't get terrible grades in your last semester.