A high GPA, or better known as something every college student under the sun works their behind off to achieve, right? Wrong.
To untangle your confusion, let me give my take on this particular topic. I for most of my life obtained rather good grades. Long story short, I had one of the roughest semesters of my life, causing my cumulative GPA to descend tremendously. Take it from me, bringing up a cumulative GPA is by far more difficult than simply doing well in your classes. Once your cumulative drops, it takes amazing grades every semester to even bump it back up a couple digits. That super high GPA I once had diminished right before my eyes. It's like all those good grades you obtained before that one rough semester never mattered. Unlike many that have similar situations, I didn't drop out, but continued to work hard.
My professors continuously told me I was smart, I was making pretty good grades again, so why did I still feel like that GPA reflected something else? I'll tell you why, because a high GPA doesn't make you intelligent just like going to church doesn't make you a Christian. I'm not saying this in a biased way in any shape or form. I know this based on fact.
A few students in one of my classes once were talking about their grades and how they were working towards that 4.0. Even though I knew I was just as smart as they were, I couldn't help but doubt myself as well as my abilities. I kick myself for this now because these same students I saw cheating the very next day. Cheating for a huge test, even. People that had always appeared so intelligent to me suddenly became bleak and disappointing. So were these people actually intelligent and just lazy? Were they lacking the intelligence and needed the grades? We have all cheated in some form whether you admit to it or not, but this incidence was somehow different. I started paying attention more to these students and they cheated on everything. Suddenly, I cared less about how low my GPA had dropped because I knew if I failed that difficult test, I did it myself. Even more rewarding, if I aced that difficult test, I did it myself. No judgement to these students whatsoever. For all I know they could be the most intelligent beings on earth, but at least now I knew a GPA couldn't tell you that.
So before you doubt yourself or compare your grades to others', just know, the grades don't matter. Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Grades definitely matter, but not when it comes to defining intelligence. A high GPA and intelligence are not synonymous, period. These students definitely do not reflect all those out there with a high GPA. I'm not trying to discredit those who did earn their grades by any means. If you busted your ass for that 3.9 then you should be proud of it. This is just for those out there who are smart and for some reason let a little number tell them they're not. You're going to do something in this world, whether or not a little bump in the road came along. Remember, our homie Albert Einstein flunked his entrance exam to the Zurich Polytechnic when he first took it. Micheal Jordan didn't make his varsity high school basketball team. Look at them now. That can and will be you next.
