Grades Don't Matter | The Odyssey Online
Start writing a post
Student Life

Grades Don't Matter

"If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid."

399
Grades Don't Matter
Reference.com

My grades don’t matter.

Even writing that sentence makes me cringe, and if you had told me that ten years ago, eight year-old me would have gone into a tailspin. You can’t blame me, really. Growing up, grades were a very good thing. Good grades meant rewards at home and at school. They led to special programs and opportunities. All throughout elementary and middle school, I was known as the “smart kid”. It’s easy to see how quickly something can become a part of your identity, and I began to tie my self-worth and happiness to the fact that I got “good grades”.

This became a problem very quickly. I was the kid that no one liked in high school, because I would be upset over a 93 on a test, despite being ten points above the class average. To me, a 4.0 GPA was the equivalent of the Holy Grail. All of my future successes, personal and professional, could be catastrophically altered depending on what grade I got on that algebra pop quiz last week. It seems silly now, but it’s a mentality that is deeply rooted in our culture, and one that I still cannot shake completely. The problem with tying your self-worth to grades is in that moment when you do get a bad grade. Failure, I have discovered, is not a question of if, but when. And when that happened, my world was upended. I was convinced that something was wrong, that I was wrong, and that if I only worked harder- I could get good grades again and everything would be okay.

But that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes recovering from a bad grade is simply a matter of changing your study habits or finding a tutor. But sometimes those things don’t work. It’s very easy to become desperate, and push yourself far beyond healthy physical and mental limits. I don’t remember the exact day school stopped being fun for me, but I want nothing more than to be able to return to that time, when I couldn’t wait to get to class. Now, I can’t wait for them to be over. I feel like many of us have lost that excitement for school we once had, bogged down by scholarship requirements and GPA minimums.

Anyone who’s been within ten feet of me in the past year has probably heard me complain about my anatomy and physiology class. I find the subject fascinating, but the sheer volume of information combined with its complexity makes every test a bare-knuckle fight to the death- one I am struggling to win. But my grades still don’t matter.

This is not to say that scholarship, education, and the endless pursuit of knowledge is useless. Learning is a journey without end, and I live for every lightbulb moment, every second that two pieces come together perfectly and something hidden is revealed.

But I will never tie my worth to a number ever again.

If, every time I sit down at my desk and open my anatomy textbook, the only reason I am doing it is for the millisecond of satisfaction when I see that grade- I will fail. If I am only studying for that piece of paper or that line I can add to my resume, I am wasting my time.

When I study, I see the child in front of me who needs my help. I see the family with nowhere else to go; I see the chance to help someone have a better quality of life. Yes, school is incredibly stressful and frustrating. Yes, there are moments, days, weeks, when I am convinced that what I am doing is futile. There are times I get back failed tests and wonder if I’m really meant to be doing this.

But when I think about why I started, why I wanted to get an education in the first place, I have no problem getting back to my feet and getting back at it. The world needs us. It needs us to be doctors and writers and English teachers and philosophers and artists and occupational therapists. It does not need us to have a perfect GPA. It does not need us to be more focused on our grades than on the future where we will apply the information. If we focus on that, if we work towards a future that we are creating for ourselves, then the “good” grades will come. And even if they don’t, there is still hope. We just need to keep moving forward, with something other than a piece of paper to dream of.


What do you work for? What kind of future are you creating?
Report this Content
This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
Gilmore Girls
Hypable

In honor of Mother’s Day, I have been thinking of all the things my mom does for my family and me. Although I couldn’t write nearly all of them, here are a few things that moms do for us.

They find that shirt that’s right in front of you, but just you can’t seem to find.

Keep Reading...Show less
Relationships

10 Reasons To Thank Your Best Friend

Take the time to thank that one friend in your life you will never let go of.

4242
Thank You on wooden blocks

1. Thank you for being the one I can always count on to be honest.

A true friend will tell you if the shirt is ugly, or at least ask to borrow it and "accidentally" burn it.

2. Thank you for accepting me for who I am.

A best friend will love you regardless of the stale french fries you left on the floor of your car, or when you had lice in 8th grade and no one wanted to talk to you.

Keep Reading...Show less
sick student
StableDiffusion

Everybody gets sick once in a while, but getting sick while in college is the absolute worst. You're away from home and your mom who can take care of you and all you really want to do is just be in your own bed. You feel like you will have never-ending classwork to catch up on if you miss class, so you end up going sick and then it just takes longer to get better. Being sick in college is really tough and definitely not a fun experience. Here are the 15 stages that everyone ends up going through when they are sick at college.

Keep Reading...Show less
kid
Janko Ferlic
Do as I say, not as I do.

Your eyes widen in horror as you stare at your phone. Beads of sweat begin to saturate your palm as your fingers tremble in fear. The illuminated screen reads, "Missed Call: Mom."

Growing up with strict parents, you learn that a few things go unsaid. Manners are everything. Never talk back. Do as you're told without question. Most importantly, you develop a system and catch on to these quirks that strict parents have so that you can play their game and do what you want.

Keep Reading...Show less
friends
tv.com

"Friends" maybe didn’t have everything right or realistic all the time, but they did have enough episodes to create countless reaction GIFs and enough awesomeness to create, well, the legacy they did. Something else that is timeless, a little rough, but memorable? Living away from the comforts of home. Whether you have an apartment, a dorm, your first house, or some sort of residence that is not the house you grew up in, I’m sure you can relate to most of these!

Keep Reading...Show less

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Facebook Comments