As I lounge next to my boyfriend and think of all the assignments that I have been already procrastinating on completing, I begin to realize I’m not the same student I was last year. I have always been a relatively great scholar; I took every class as serious as a job. I wanted more, so taking six classes regularly was thrilling. A true workaholic. I even received a grant to become a research assistant this semester. Throughout all of my college education (I am in my last semester), I have been serious about keeping up but last semester wasn’t my best work. I took various hits in many areas of my life. Maintaining everything became difficult beyond the assignments.
My mental health was not where it could have been and everything became foggy. I couldn’t write papers to the standards I hold for myself, and at some point just stopped keeping up with the readings. My GPA took a hit and so did my ego. How I had defined myself was actually something that could change at any moment. It was not because of my lack of intelligence or something missing from my skills set, which is often the case for a multitude of students. Failing sometimes is extremely important even for a perfectionist like myself. It was easy to discredit all the hard work because of one semester, especially because of the pressure that is associated with grades. I thought of graduate school and how I would miss out on so many opportunities, which to be honest may not even be close to the truth. What I didn’t realize was that like many other people in the world, I am after all human. I’ve always been my best critic and also my worst enemy. I like to be ahead of everyone else and correct myself before things become a problem. What I have taken from this experience is that learning is collaborative. Every day I grow in my relationships through communication and trial and error. My education is also about developing skills beyond those in the classroom.
We always hear about how failure is a part of the experience but there is never enough support for when we are actually not at our best. We live in a culture that shames these experiences and often we may end up repressing these negative thoughts. I myself sure have, but it only brought me further down. The truth is I am probably going to be alright. I might get into a decent graduate school and my GPA will go back to what it was. These moments make me realize that the grading system alone is not set up to build us up in any kind of way or even fair judgment, yet it is detrimental to a lot of opportunities. There are several classes last semester that were important for my personal and academic development. I learned the most from the classes that I received the lowest grade. So to me, that just emphasizes how arbitrary grades can be. On that note, I feel like I have grown as a person and these experiences helped me redefine certain parts of myself. I believe that is where the real progress lies. I am not my GPA, whether it is high or low.
