Hello and welcome.

For some, you've attended classes all year long. You've done close to every assignment, you've played by the rules, done extra credit opportunities, studied for hours, turned in assignments with dried up tear-stains from the stress-induced frenzy that grades have placed on your life.

You've passed up opportunities to go out and party and had to endure critical cases of FOMO while you watched Snapchat stories of your best friends going about their nights stress-free.

Know that your hard work isn't going unnoticed, that your work ethic will not only reward you, ultimately, not only with your grade on your final but the values you've instilled in yourself will prove to be extremely beneficial in whatever field of work future employers fight over your resume for coming out of school.

Believe in the process. You'll have plenty of time and opportunities to live your life how you want during the summer, so use that as a motivator to give it everything you've got and end the school year with something you're immensely proud of.

For others, you're barely scraping by. You prioritize having fun and living life to its fullest while you're young, but that sometimes leads to you procrastinating your homework or forgetting about it altogether.

You've spent more time in the club than in class, you don't believe that government testing is a good assessment of your intellectual level, and you live and die by the motto "C's get degrees"

Know that, although standard testing doesn't tell the full story of any select individuals IQ level or capability at succeeding at a particular job, a lot of companies like to look at GPA and academic standing and involvement when looking for potential interns or possible employees. Performing well on your finals is, in most cases, the easiest way to raise your overall grade so buckle down and try your best.

At the same time, getting good grades in college does not automatically grant you a substantially rewarding job. If you don't do as well as you wish you did if your GPA is lower than the price of gas, that is not a reflection of you, it is not a numerical measure of your value, and it doesn't mean you are hopeless.

Thomas Edison's teacher's thought he was dumb, annoying, and asked too many questions, Albert Einstein dropped out of school when he as 15.

Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard after only attending classes he was interested in to devote all his time to developing Microsoft.

Steve Jobs dropped out of college his freshman year, lived with his friends on campus, and attended classes when he wanted to.

Steven Spielberg, arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time, was turned away by USC Film School twice.

Simon Cowell dropped out of school at the age of 16.

Long story short, your academic report card has absolutely zero bearings on the impact your capable of making on this world. So study hard, give it your best shot, and be proud of yourself, regardless of the score, because you are unique, you are driven, and you are going to wonderful and incredible things in this world.