Most people go to university expecting their grades from high school to drop. First year is usually when people are exposed to their first ever 60% grade. It’s an emotional roller coaster, I’m sure, but it’s one I went on long before university. By the time I began university, not only had I seen numerous 40s, 50s, and 60s, I had already accepted my stupidity. I remember going to my IBH (Integrated Business and Humanities) lectures where professors would say things like, “I’m sure you’re all incredible students, you all had 90s in high school.” As all my classmates agreed, I would be giggling to myself in my seat thinking, “There’s no way these people actually think I’m smart.” The craziest part is that no one would expect me to be a bad student. I show up to all of my classes, I study for all my exams – yes, I’ve tried all of the study methods out there – school just wasn’t for me. What usually takes people a few days to study for, takes me a couple of weeks.
The problem is that I would try, get a bad grade, have a mental breakdown, pick myself up again, study, get a bad grade, and the cycle would constantly repeat itself. No matter how much more practice I did, or how much more time I allocated, I wasn’t getting it. Every time I found myself in this negative loop, it hurt my self-esteem more, and the people around me talking about their incredible marks never helped. I became fully convinced that my brain was useless. I was never going to be a doctor or an engineer. Even the business classes that are constantly mocked for being too easy, I struggled with. I wanted so badly to be one of those people who could study the night before and ace the exam or the assignment. I still feel the same way, and I still have the same struggles. I’m not here to tell you about how I defeated the bad grades, that’s unrealistic, in my opinion. I just stopped letting the results get to me as much.
Our education system is built around academic validation. Even when we were younger, math classes consisted of drawing graphs of study time and final grades, trying to correlate the amount of time a person studies with their end result. It’s so easy to think, “I’m the problem” when in reality it’s the unaccommodating structure that’s the problem. In schools there’s so much emphasis on individuality and teachers say things like, “everyone learns in their own way.” Then why are we all assessed in the same manner? How come intelligence is defined by a number? How come I am defined by a number? As a society, we’ve placed these standards that a 90% is incredible but a 70% is not. If I had 0% knowledge walking into a class and ended with 60% knowledge, isn’t that tremendous? According to the made-up standards that we’ve placed, a 60% means I didn’t try hard enough, I didn’t study, and there’s something wrong with my methods. The education system constantly makes me feel like I’m swimming against the current; drowning. However, I refuse to let it do that anymore. I’m so tired of letting a value control my mood, or how I view myself.
A few weeks ago I received multiple bad grades and my initial thoughts consisted of, “I can’t believe I’m this stupid,” “I’m such an idiot,” and “Wow what a surprise! I failed once again.” I was falling into my old thought process, about to drown, until I reminded myself that grades don’t define me. I had to keep telling myself that they were just numbers, the subject wasn’t my strong suit, I needed to study more, and the exam was really difficult. Instead of blaming my intelligence and ruining my self-esteem, I considered the external factors. Instead of listening to the people with exceptional marks saying, “Aw it’s ok. 50% isn’t that bad,” I focused on myself. As much as it always hurts to see low numbers, especially after putting in so much effort, some things are out of my control. That one bad grade will not drastically change my life. Whether I am a good or bad person does not depend on that number and my future employers won’t care either because there is more to life than that number. The important thing is to try my best every single time, and then whatever happens happens. Instead of thinking about all of the past assignments I did awful on, I take one assignment, one exam, one day at a time. There’s no reason to dwell on what already happened when there’s room to improve in the future.
If anyone else is struggling with their grades, I hope this shows you that you are not alone. These are just little reminders that help me swim against the current of expectations.