In college, one of the most important things to a student is his or her GPA. Students live in constant fear of this precious number dropping at any minute. College students also tend to compare their GPAs to others, and think that is the only scale of how good of a student they are. I do not agree with this at all.

While a GPA is wildly important in everyone’s college career, I feel that some place far more weight on the meaning of the GPA than it actually holds. Yes, a good GPA will allow acceptance into graduate schools and maybe help with jobs in the future, but this is not the basis of how someone is as a person or a student for that matter. We all learn in different ways, and we all perform in different ways as well. I think that keeping up our GPA is vital and I do my best to keep it where I like, but let’s try to keep the comparing to a minimum.

I do not think comparing GPAs to others will improve the grades and working methods of students. I find that comparing these numbers only causes one to feel inadequate about their own work, and embarrassed to talk about their own academic studies and life. I think we should hold our GPA with pride and be able to tell others, especially if we are proud, and not present it in a comparative way. Rather than boasting, let's boost others. I have many friends who test better than I do, and who are academically gifted much more than I am, but we have our own separate talents and we appreciate our gifts and support each other in the areas that we excel in. We bring different things to the table and that is what makes the world go round.

We should move from a competitive showing and boasting, and maybe sometimes even disappointment about our GPA, to an understanding that we all have different skills and talents and passions, and that it is OK for some to have a 4.0, and it is also OK for people not to. Even though I think I would actually start crying if my GPA somehow shot up to that number, I am more than content knowing that I am more than this number -- and so is every single college student.

We should not ever let a number rule the way we view ourselves because when college ends, so does our GPA. Although it might help us find something after school, I believe we will achieve anything we want to with our ambition and willingness to learn things because of our passions.