If someone approached you and said, “Wow Joe! I’m impressed with the work you’ve done. You’re satisfactory!” How would you feel? Would you feel accomplished? Would that make you feel average? Would you not waste a second thought on it? After all, they don’t know just how amazing you are at everything you do.

At the close of my college career, I will have a BS in Sociology with a concentration in Families and Intimate Relationships. (Take a breath. I know that was a lot to say. And yes – I know – It does sound incredibly pretentious. Let’s try to move past it.) Not to mention I'll have an unimaginable amount of minors because, well, I’m indecisive, and I changed my mind more times than I care to admit.

At an early age I was taught that college is the place you find your future; it is the stepping-stone between adolescent shenanigans and adult endeavors. We are asked to pick a career path, seek an education, and broaden our horizons with sensible experiences, all in the hopes of eventually securing a nine-to-five job with health care and benefits and an “opportunity for career advancement.” (Career advancement… what does that even mean? Today, I am the coffee queen and tomorrow, I am the copy master. Sure, I’ll get right on it.) Then, and only after you’ve met these requirements can you hope to retire before you turn 60, making all futile attempt to locate lost sleep, and well… it all sounds very depressing. The point is: you make a choice. You choose a school. You choose a career. You choose an internship that will help you get to where you think you want to go. You choose a path. And then eventually, you choose a life. Whatever you do, you make a choice.

So I made some… a few, actually. One of my most recent choices was to take an internship with a local non-profit organization. An internship with a minimum of 150 hours, weekly journal requirements, and a final project that shows I was truly an “asset to the organization” I devoted the greater part of my summer to. These were just the requirements to pass the class and none of the expectations my site coordinator required of an intern. As is the purpose of most classes, you are graded on how well you adhere to the expectations that are spelled out for you within a syllabus. So, you either pass or you fail – you’re either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Did you turn in your weekly journal on time? Satisfactory. Have you set up your site visit and actively collected 75 hours for a midterm evaluation? Satisfactory. Even the bits that weren’t just black and white like the midterm evaluation that allows a coordinator to answer poor, below average, average, very good, and outstanding feels just as unfulfilling as a mark of “satisfactory.”

Ever had a teacher that told the class on the first day they were simply just not the kind of teacher “that gave out As”… yeah. The overwhelming feeling of inadequacy that overcame your being when you realized that grades were turned in, it was time to check all of the marks you received, and your professor wasn’t kidding. No one in the entire class got an A. Even if you worked a million times harder than the kid next to you that got a C, your B is still a resounding symbol of an average experience. That’s the way it feels to have someone rate you as satisfactory or unsatisfactory throughout a process that is more complex than a simple yes or no.

We devote time to a career and an internship because we are told we have to be outstanding. (Whatever you decide to do, make sure you’re the best at it.) You’re supposed to have practice in your field that makes you the perfect candidate for the job – the only candidate for the job. But when it’s all said and done, you just scratched the surface, and no one gives you a grade on how well you handled situations you weren’t prepared for. You learned a fraction of what there is to learn about what you so diligently studied in a classroom behind a closed door, with a professor who doesn’t give out As. So you’re satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and neither sound quite appealing. I’m just good enough to get a college credit for all of my unpaid time and effort, but not good enough to exceed the standards because the standards don’t give out As. I’m sure there are times when average would be just fine, but when it comes to the rest of your life, who wants to tote around a glowing neon sign that reads “AVERAGE” in Comic Sans?

Alright, I know this sounds cynical… depressing… a little jaded. Maybe I am jaded. I worked at an internship that changed my life and on my final evaluation there were very few things that I was “outstanding” at. After confronting my coordinator and asking for tips on how I could be better for future experiences, she smiled and said, “I’m the kind of teacher that doesn’t give out As. That way, you always have something to strive for. You are an exceptional student and perhaps the best intern I have had through this program.” Well, that’s good to know because my evaluation form doesn’t reflect that you think I am.

“You will be successful at whatever you choose to do,” my coordinator said. Then why do I feel average? Why do I feel like this experience was graded as busy work that your substitute teacher facilitated?

So, as any college student with a fear of coming up short would do, I sat and I stewed on it. I ate on it too when I found that the experience felt more disheartening than empowering. I found peace at the bottom of a Chocolate Truffle ice cream carton, and I realized I am, in fact, satisfactory (average, if you will) and that is neither impressive nor is it awful. I have three credit hours to show for invaluable experiences that weren’t average, and although my passing was contingent on the word “satisfactory,” that doesn’t make the process any less outstanding.

I think the point to all of my rambling is that you can spend your time measuring yourself by someone else’s standards – you can buy in to the scale that never seems to tip in your favor – or you can create your own standard for the success you want to enjoy. After all, you did survive an internship, even if the way they tell you that you succeeded feels more like a slow clap that never quite builds and less like a celebration. Moral of the story: It wasn’t about the grade. You can’t put a letter on the way someone feels after realizing this is, or isn’t, the career for their future. It was about the experience, and if you have even half of one during your time as an intern, it will be worth it – average or not.