With a lot of my Facebook friends posting their grades with pride and achievement, I seem to think of those who were not so lucky this past semester. A lot rides on this generation when it comes to the education we are receiving and paying for. We put so much pressure on ourselves as well as being involved in other activities and jobs. Some are really good with all that pressure. I know people that can handle five to six classes at a time and ace them every year. There are also others that can't handle that type of pace and get overwhelmed with taking four classes and still not doing well or up to par with standards set by parents and society.
The balance between school and personal life becomes thinner as time goes on in college. Especially in a sorority or fraternity, we mix school with sister/brother obligations. Our lives become blurred as new university students and the stress of school increases. It's rough and not many people actually talk about this. The issues that leave students pulling consecutive all nighters for a paper only to get a fair passing grade, or when we do graduate after years of trying and retrying and fixing ourselves to do better and not being able to land a job. We've set society up to only take the best even if sometimes the best didn't do as well. I've learned that even if you are the most qualified in something, jobs will always take the highest gpa.
Society has those standards now that education is everything. It doesn't matter if the student can be smart but if they do bad on tests or quizzes it brings that grade down fast. They could excel in something and be miserable in another subject and fail just because of those situations. A student can fall ill for most of the semester and it sets them back a whole semester more of college. That is more money, time, and stress to handle all over again. Society is so set that a top notch education is the only way to make a living now, and it's true. What used to be good regular based jobs that made enough to support a family is now barely enough to pay off a bill or two a month. Millennials are left with needing more school just to get those paychecks to support the next future generation and even then jobs aren't willing to pay that type of compensation.
We live in a world where if its not up to the standards set, then we are a disappointment or a waste of an investment. We push ourselves and if we fail we are left with that burden of saying we failed and not only damaging our future more but having others tell us that we should have done differently to please and satisfy them. The world is getting increasingly harder, but it doesn't mean we are a disappointment. We all learn differently, if it takes more than once to pass a class then so be it. Sometimes doing things again is better than accepting a worse grade. I am one to say I've had a few years of unfortunate grades and retaking courses that turns out never mattered anyways. But I lived and learned through it. We fail, we get up and we try again and that is the best we can do in the end. If the goal is to graduate then why should we put a pressure that damages our health and well being when we can turn it to be a helping experience to become a better student. So to those that may have done poorly this semester; take a breath, have a mini-melt down, get up and plan to better yourself. It's your life and no matter if family or friends or anyone else gets mad, you are the only one who can change it and make it a better for the next time. Go prove society wrong and show that even if a semester was bad, it doesn't define you totally as a student nor as a person.
