I have finished my first year as a college student. This former awkward freshman is now a (still awkward, but) finally-ready-to-really-get-involved sophomore. Huzzah.
Insomnia decided to kick in the night before my last two, and most intense, finals. And no matter how tired I was last night after going on only 3 hours of sleep and six hours of writing (which went well, I believe), I couldn't fall asleep. Either could my remaining roommate (D left last night, L left about 10 minutes ago), so we took a Benadryl each and watched tv shows until the medicine and our fatigue finally took over.
Ok, now for what's really on my mind. Grades.
(skip to second-to-last line for moral of story. this might get boring)I like to think I'm a good student. And by that I've always meant getting only A's and B's. I got exactly two C's in 4th grade because I didn't like finishing homework, and the homework was usually writing. After that I vowed to never get a C again, do all my homework, and to be awesome at writing. After that I never got lower than an A in English classes and it became one of my favorite subjects. Then in high school I got two C's, but they were in honors math (which I didn't even want to take) so while they nearly made me cry, I knew where my strengths lay by then.
Now I'm in college. A ridiculously competitive, ass-kicking college. And yesterday I found out I got a C in Biology. Biology. I aced bio in high school. I was going to be a biology major. It almost made me laugh after I almost cried. But for some reason, I'm okay with it. Not because a C from here won't look that bad on my transcript, but because it really doesn't matter that much to me anymore. Who cares what grade I got in Biology my freshman year of college? I remember our high school teachers talking to us about the rise in the obsession over grades that they noticed in recent years. It's not about the learning anymore. I can't say it's all the students' fault because I think colleges make us feel like we have to be perfect numbers in order to be worth anything. I worked really hard in Anthropology because I loved the subject. I learned so much that I could figuratively see the horizons of my mind expanding. I got A's on all my papers and the midterm, and hopefully on the final too. I feel like I deserve it because I earned it. I should be getting a B in Classics because that's how much effort I put into that class, and the quality of my work for it. Psychology, I admit, was an easy A, as long as I did the reading and the online quizzes on time. Which is what i did, so I'm good. But Bio, I went to lectures, fell asleep or dozed through most of them, came back to my room and never opened my textbook at all until two days before exams to look up a few things that i probably should have known about in the first place. I also got cocky after I aced the first midterm. I studied even less for the second one and after doing poorly on that gave up for the final. I do regret that, especially since exactly two more points would have given me a B-. But I feel like I deserve what I got. If I want something better, I have to earn it. Grades shouldn't be my aim;
learning should always be the ultimate goal.
And that's the point of this long-winded, excessively detailed post.
Comments (9)
I just hate how grades are only what people look at. You can be a brilliant person, but if you don't have the paperwork you're no one. To them, at least.
You probably already know this, but make sure you always turn your homework in, even if every single problem on the homework is wrong. It can make a huge difference in your grade. Seriously it can move a C up to an A
@ShatterFreak - It's not.....but how can you show that you are a brilliant person? There are lots of people who will hire someone who didn't get good grades, but getting good grades is an easy way to show you are brilliant (because, it's not like it's hard once you learn the trick)
@phantomFive - Education, grades, school is all arbitrary. Look at the great inventors and philosophers, they didn't get where they were because of what University they went to and what they made on the SAT. They came up with great theories, compositions and artwork and we all sit here picking their work apart wondering how they did it.
This is not something acquired through others, it's something you learn on your own. Whether it be Art, Music, Marth, whatever, it's something you're born into and born for.
Personally I'd much rather display my intelligence through the songs and books I write and the art I create than through thousands of dollars in debt for a piece of paper.
I don't need to prove myself to anyone. Displaying my intelligence is not the reason I'm in college. A degree to me is just another aspect of life better kicked into a corner. To me personally it's trash, but I won't bother to rid of it entirely because of the rest of the world.
@ShatterFreak - School is what you make of it. Good luck to you.
@ShatterFreak- I see your view as an ideal one, one that I wish I could believe in but know I can't because life just isn't great that way. I don't think everything can be learned on your own, though. We, and the great intellectuals of the past, build on others' knowledge and then add our own perspective.
@phantomFive - Oh, yes. I've been molded to feel ill at the thought of not turning is assignments. And I agree that school is what you make of it, as are all things.
@drops_of_crimson_rain - I guess my problem with it all is how they dissect something beautiful so they can figure it out... I'd rather do what I can to show beauty to others just as they show me, all without the messy details of how. It's a dream concept, I know.
But I guess that makes me something natural. :/
@ShatterFreak - Do both.....maintain the beauty of your naturalness while learning how to dissect things and figure them out. That's what school is there for, to teach some of the hard ugly stuff.