I'm sure we all remember the tedious, stressful time spent typing, erasing, then retyping college application resumes and essays. I racked through the shelves of my mind to try and remember any and everything I had been a part of that would make me appear as the best candidate. I attended a few meetings for class council and technically was still in Girl Scouts, even though the last time I had met with my troop was in the previous year. I was guilty of preparing a few white lies and exaggerations, molding the truth to what I thought was what the colleges wanted to hear.
There are so many things wrong with the college application process, in my opinion, but that's a whole different story. To scratch the surface briefly, though, I should have been more concerned about finding a school that fit me best instead of ones that I had to tweak my experiences to. I was so concerned about my GPA compared to the average of those accepted and the average of those in my class. It seemed that a single number was going to tell a college whether I was suitable for their institution.
I understand that there currently is not a more efficient way of screening through the thousands upon thousands of applications colleges and universities receive each year, but my problem is not really with the high school mentality of making it from point A to point B. Instead what troubles me is as a sophomore in college I am meeting people who still think that grades are what determine worth.
Just today a girl in my class asked if a diagram my professor had drawn on the board was going to be on our next exam. My professor straight up said that questions like that are the only ones he can't stand, and I totally understand where he's coming from. Most of the other kids in my class, however, were shocked at his reaction and another student actually lowered her hand because she was going to ask something similar regarding content on the future test. No one else seemed to understand that, especially at this point in our educations, we should be taking classes that interest us content-wise and thinking not about how to answer exam questions, but how to apply the information to our world.
Sure, we're going to be concerned about resumes for future employers, but if you're still joining clubs just so you have more bullet points, you should seriously reconsider your motivation. If we continue to think in terms of how to get from A to B in the easiest manner, we won't grow. I believe we should be doing what is genuinely interesting and worry about what will then fit your resume then not what you can force your resume to fit. For example, when people see my articles they ask me if I'm doing it for a class or if I get any sort of credit for it. It's sad that, even though I'm a science major, no one thinks I simply enjoy to write. Occurrences like this shouldn't be so rare.
We are young and passionate, yet too caught up in worrying about future salaries to even use this to our advantage. Nothing new ever comes from listening, taking notes, and getting A's on exams. Breakthroughs come from questioning what is taught in class instead of simply accepting facts. Instead of memorizing these facts, take them to the next level by real world application.
