Its that time of year again, and unfortunately I don’t mean Christmas. Finals are quickly approaching and with them come the feelings of the season: stress, anxiety and inadequacy.
Many college students have scholarships, program acceptance and athletic participation riding on their GPA, but even for those who don’t, it’s easy to believe your grades are a reflection of your personal worth, especially, it seems, if they’re not as good as you’d want them to be.
American society puts so much weight upon academic excellence. A ‘C’ is no longer considered average but bad, a source of shame, a veritable scar on the transcript of anyone who wants to have a career after college. There are millions of students across the US who are taking full class loads, working sometimes several jobs, involved in clubs, greek life or volunteer positions, and sacrificing physical and mental health to maintain a high GPA. All the while with the great burden of tens of thousands of dollars of student debt hanging over their heads, and the generation above them posting to facebook with disdain, calling them entitled, selfish, and overly sensitive.
These are just the ambient pressures surrounding finals week, the anxiety and feelings of inadequacy are multiplied a billion-fold when you happen to be taking a class in a subject that is naturally difficult for you or that is required for your major and eventual career. It could be anything from Theoretical Physics to Chem 101 to even Art Appreciation, in classes like this it sometimes feels like your shortcomings are put under a microscope, and that no matter how hard you try to keep up, you keep failing.
So what do you do? The natural tendency is to stress eat a pint of ice cream, curl up in your bed and accept that you are a failure until the sweet freedom of winter break rolls around, however, that coping strategy tends to be ineffective. So what can you do?
The important thing to remember is that you are not your grades. You are not even the things you’re bad at, there is so much more to a person, to a life, than quantitative values.
The fear of not being accepted to a program, or losing a scholarship, or not being accepted to grad school is so real, no one can deny that. But in the face of fears such as that it is sometimes comforting to remember that if Plan A fails, even if it fails spectacularly, it is not the end.
At the end of the day, no one will care what your ACT, GRE, or MCAT score is, what will matter is how you use your talents to make the world a better place. You don’t have to be the best, you have to do your best. It sounds corny, but it’s true.
So as finals roll around this semester, take a deep breath and remember: there are things that you are really good at, things you’re passionate about, find those things and use them for good. Remember that it’s okay not to be the best at everything, Be kind to those around you and use the gifts you do have to positively impact your community.
For further encouragement, check out this video:
