Worrying about your GPA and class grades creates a lot of stress on a student, especially around finals. Put bluntly, as students, we don't like to fail. Failing means that we have to take the class again, either in the next semester or sometime down the road, which can mess up our progress for our major and half the time we just don't want to take the class again. Normally, the class in which you're struggling the most isn't the most fun class you're taking at the moment, but to generally put it, we don't like nor want to fail a class.

Personally, I've never pulled an all-nighter (shocker) because I honestly never saw the point in it. I'd rather study, with large breaks, throughout the day, and get my eight hours of sleep and be accepting of my abilities and knowledge on the topic by the time I take the final exam. Honestly, if I don't understand something fully at this point at the end of the semester I'm just going to accept that and move on. If you get an A in the class and I get a C, hey we both passed.

A lot of people rely on their grades and GPA for financial aid while going to school, and GPA is taken into consideration for graduate programs like law school and med school. My argument is that grades don't define you as a person, not that they don't matter completely, because well you need a decent GPA to graduate and all that, I'm just saying it shouldn't define your self-worth. Nobody ever got turned away from a job just because they got a C in chemistry in their spring semester that they had to take just for their GE, that doesn't happen.

There is no specific timeline you have to follow to reach any of your goals in life because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how fast or slow you're moving up in life, all that matters is that you're moving up. There are people in their 30s, maybe even 40s taking GE or undergrad classes with me, and when they graduate they will graduate with the same degree as everyone else in their academic cohort, regardless of their age or when and where they started. There's your proof right there.

You are more than just a letter or a number, as long as you deem it so.