I know the thought of waking up early in the morning, constantly being put in a state of stress, and being forced to reiterate vocabulary words might be irritating, but when you stop and reflect on it, learning is actually really enjoyable.

Count me in when people ask me if school stresses me out, because my hand will shoot straight up without even hesitating. I am not a huge fan of writing long essays and completing homework assignments just for the sake of finishing it to get a good grade. But are we really engaged in learning if we're more concerned about our grades?

My English professor actually just spent this last week talking about how if students weren't so consistently worried about their grades, they could actually learn so much more. I agree with this because learning is actually really fun! It's just the factor that we are being measured for our learning that stresses us out. We really shouldn't be anxious about it however.

A question that we shouldn't be asking in our generation is, Do we value the process of learning or do we actually value the outcomes that result from it such as the grades and honor rolls?

We would all hope to answer and say that we really do cherish the process of learning, but unfortunately, the latter seems to be true in most cases. We need to start putting our worries aside for our grades and just absorb all of the new information just for the fun of it.

I do agree that the education curriculum needs to find ways to help us increase our level of engagement with learning, but some of that engagement also requires work from us students. Imagine how cool you would be if you could just recite all of the elements of the periodic table from heart or even write a very strong essay about a topic you feel passionate about. You're definitely the coolest person in the block in my book.

As I said before, taking the time to reflect on the process of learning makes you realize that it's such a fun process. I mean, just think about it. How interesting is it that you can learn about literally anything and everything if you put the time and heart into it? It's pretty extraordinary. Our curiosity just needs to run wild without any worries of success or failure.

Also, not many people have the fortune to be able to pursue an education so we should take it as a prized possession to value it even more. It's not something that is easy to get. It's expensive and time demanding so we need to treasure every second of it.

Ever since I was a child, I've always been raised to view education as a gift and I still cherish it to this day. Sure, I care about my grades more than the next person, but it's the process of learning new information daily that makes me stay engaged even if it's a subject that I'm not particularly fond of.

We need to start putting our worries aside and perk our ears up and "actually learn." We do enjoy learning so let's make it obvious.