Dealing with grade disappointment is something many of us have experienced and have to learn to cope with. Throughout my career as a student I’ve found that not beating yourself up over a grade is the first thing to do. The next seemingly obvious step is to address the material you didn’t grasp as well as the other topics, and consider studying more and putting more time into that subject. While this might be a simple concept, it’s taken me years to put into practice, rather than linger on the one bad grade and letting it affect my overall performance.

Learning how to communicate effectively with professors and trying new study methods often and remembering which ones impacted which classes the most has helped me in the process of managing grades. This involved going to office hours, which I dreaded in high school, and sharing opinions with my peers. I spent many hours in the weeks leading up to the start of college researching others’ thoughts and experiences with their transition to college-level academics through social media platforms and different articles and videos. Though quite possibly obsessive, this gave me peace of mind (and gave me a break from painstakingly planning my dorm room layout).

Hearing others’ experiences with a course before taking it and getting good background info on which parts of a class are most significant in tests vs quizzes also eased the transition. And, of course, throughout my first year of college I changed some things to accommodate for more group projects and presentations. Aside from lack of focus in equally important aspects of school, like extracurricular activities, team sports and clubs, but also a result of my introversion and grade-oriented view, my ignorance of social aspects carried over to college, but I remedied this by dividing out my attention and balancing my day. This wasn’t a simple task, since old habits die hard, but being away from the old atmosphere of high school and being totally independent made the attitude makeover an easier process.

Though it took me well into my second semester to start getting the hang of balance, rather than concentrating too much on academic aspect of college, I was eventually able to grasp what I’d longed for in high school, where I focused almost entirely on grades, rather than the information I really wanted to get out of a course, but college, where you pay for each class, I took not only as incentive to do well in my classes, but also as opportunity to enjoy the courses more flexibly by prioritizing the areas I liked best, which inadvertently helped me improve my grades.

For many of my peers and myself, getting good grades in college didn’t shift in importance from high school due to post-graduation goals, like law school or medical school, both of which are highly competitive. However, just because grades maintained—or even grew in—importance in college, this didn’t mean I couldn’t direct more of my energy towards other interests, like club sports or reading for fun.