Yes, I was that student that took my grades ever so seriously in high school. My first two years as an underclassman, I was ranked in the top 5% of my entire class. Throughout my course of high school, I took AP classes in addition to any honors classes they offered. I took dual credit classes, and I diligently did my homework and studied. I took on every single extra credit assignment that was ever offered for some extra cushion, I was always on the honor roll and invited to my schools annual trip to Wahooz for all students having a GPA of over a 3.5, and I had never, ever, ever received anything lower than an ‘A’ in a class. I graduated top 15% of my class with over a 4.0 GPA and had gotten academic scholarships to multiple schools. I was the equivalent of the one kid who treated P.E. classes like Olympic training; my grades were reflective of everything I embodied, or so I thought.
What I have learned is that college is an ENTIRELY different ball game. My first semester of college—dare I say it—I received my first ‘B.' I went to every class lecture, every lab, every review session, had gone in for weekly tutoring, studied all my textbook chapters and PowerPoint slides, and still managed to get a ‘C’ or lower on every exam we had taken. Luckily, we had some in class assignments that cushioned my grade a little bit, but I still was extremely unsatisfied and disappointed with the fact that I gotten my first ‘B'.
***Background information: For my particular major, my overall GPA isn’t what determines my acceptance to my program, rather they select only a few classes related to my program and calculate a separate GPA based on these classes, one of which was this class I had received a ‘B’ in.***
I coped with this seemingly tragic event and talked myself back up after coming to terms with it, after all it was just ONE ‘B’, right? Never did I fear, I would get all ‘A’s the next semester and my GPA wouldn’t take a blow. HAHAHA, NOPE. Midterm season came around during my second semester of college, and I was failing a class…FAILING. This had never happened to me before. This was uncharted territory. How could I, the honor roll student who had never had below a 4.0 in my entire life before coming to college, be FAILING a class? I estimated my end of year grades based on what I thought I would get, and discovered I had the potential to lose one of my scholarships if I did not get this grade up. As a student paying her way through college, NO WAY could I afford to have this happen to me financially (and academically of course). I had two more exams left in the semester: two chances to SOMEHOW bring my grade up to at least somewhere in the ‘B’ range to keep my GPA where it needed to be. I studied my butt off and made a trillion flashcards in preparation for these grade-determining exams.
I got C’s on both exams, bringing my overall final grade up to a low ‘C’. I was devastated. I did a little better than I realistically thought I would on some of my other final exams, which kept my GPA just barely high enough to keep my scholarship (thank goodness). But yet again, this was another one of my classes that was required for my major and had totally just sunk my GPA. After throwing myself a pity party, I put on my big girl pants and dealt with the fact that I would have to retake the class, and I couldn’t change it.
My teacher had let us know that we could pick up our final exams in person if we wanted to keep them, so I went to go pick mine up since I wanted all the class materials I could get to help me out for round two. My teacher wasn’t there, but the lab T.A. was, and she just pointed me over to the corner where I could find my exam in a folder to take. I found my test and saw “73/100” with a “B-“ written next to it. I was so confused. I had turned around and asked, “Was this written correctly? What’s my final grade then?” I found out that my teacher had miraculously bumped me up to a ‘B-‘. Being comparable to the kid in my high school P.E. class training for the Olympics, I would be lying if I said I didn’t shed a tear or two (HUGE SHOUT OUT TO MY TEACHER BY THE WAY, THANK YOU).
Anyway, to make a long story short, I have learned that it’s okay to go from an above average high school student to an average college student because getting straight ‘A’’s isn’t everything. I went from a straight ‘A’ student, to being upset about a ‘B’, to crying tears of joy about receiving a ‘B-‘. It happens. In a society that emphasizes academic success, I’ve learned firsthand it’s not the end of the world, no matter how much it may seem so, when you get your first ‘B’. Or even your first ‘C’.
You will fail a test. You will forget to do an assignment. You will stay out too late with friends instead of studying. You will skip a class. You will realize 12 hours before your final that you had written down the wrong day and stay up all night studying for it. You will want to drop out at some point. And if none of these things ever happen to you, then I don’t believe you (but if they really don’t…more power to you).
If you are utterly upset because your college grades do not reflect your high school grades, you are not alone. College is nothing like high school, and it’s not every day you get an extremely nice professor who bumps your grade up an entire letter grade, it’s more unheard of actually. Regardless, the secret to success in college is to realize that a bad grade does not define who you are or what you will become. You are so much more than a bad grade, and it does not make you a failure.
