Grades specifying you as a person
Nowadays, students believe that grades are everything and they are going to stick with you forever. . In fact, that is the total opposite, grades are only temporary. Grades defining you as a person is a growing issue because students, especially the ones who are high school seniors, are constantly stressing because they want to get into the best University. Students believe that if they don't get straight A's they are not smart enough to succeed. But, after doing further research I found that grades should not define you. Recent research shows that grades do not define your intelligence, does not get you better jobs, or determine how successful you will be in life.
Despite what everyone believes about grades defining you and how smart you are, that is not true at all. There are much more powerful things that will define you and grades are not one of them. Intelligence comes in many different ways. Intelligence does not only come from how you perform in a class and what grade you get. There are other factors that are more powerful than a test grade or a letter. Every person has different strengths and weaknesses. If someone fails at a subject, other people might perceive that person as being dumb or stupid. But that is not the case. A grade in a certain subject does not define you as a person. A quotation from the website The State Press stated "We need to stop weighing our intelligence through grades and instead recognize that intelligence comes in all forms" (Sutherland, 2017). Sutherland also goes to say that students should worry less about the grades they are getting and worry more about the information they are retaining and gaining from a class.This is a problem because there may be students out there who think that just because they got one bad grade in a class its going to taunt them forever and that they are useless. When in fact, the numbers wont matter in the end. Its your self worth. Although grades are important, teachers and parents need to stop drilling it into their children or students mind that it is the only thing that will matter because its not.
As children we see everywhere that in order to get higher paying job or have the best career opportunities you need a higher education and a higher grade point average in those top colleges. Although people are forced to believe that your grades are what gets you a better job when you are older, that is not true. There are different types of intelligence that are more important and have a more powerful impact in life rather than just the society norm of what people believe is intelligence. A quote from Forbes stated "Research carried out by the Carnegie Institute of Technology shows that 85 percent of your financial success is due to skills in "human engineering," your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead" (Jenson, 2012). This is very important because it shows students and everyone that most of your financial success and jobs come from human and engineering an not your education and Grade point average is great. Students at the University are constantly learning the skills it takes to become successful in their desired major, but getting an "A" on every test does not mean anything if you can't apply what you learned to real life in the workforce. A company is not going to look at your transcripts and look at how many A's you got during your years in college and determine if they want you for the job or not. They are going to see if you have your degree and thats it. If you don't get the best grades in college but still get a degree, thats all that matters in the end. This is a problem because there are some students out there that give up because of their GPA and they think that they will not have a good paying job or even a good job at all. But, they need to know this fact about the 85% of financial success is due to yourself and how you can successful engineer yourself as a person. All of the rumors of better grades equals better paying jobs needs to stop because it may make some people feel like they will never be successful or financially successful if they do not have the best grades.
Growing up everybody is taught that the number one thing to be successful in life is the university you go to and how well you do. Something that most people should know is that your grades do not define how successful you will be in the future. Like the statement previously, we are forced to believe as children going through school that in order to be successful in the future we need to get good grades and can not mess up once. That is not always true. There are many very successful people in the world who failed in a university or just dropped out. Even if you fail or decide to drop out there are different ways to be successful later on. Not everything in life is focused on your schooling and grades. A quote from Business Insider states "Despite pulling good grades, he dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to go cofound Microsoft, setting him on the path to becoming the wealthiest man in the world." (Weinberger, 2016). This fact is referring to Bill Gates, the wealthiest man in the world. This just goes to show that even if you decide you want to drop out of school, there is still hope and that you should never give up on yourself.
Students are becoming obsessed with the grading system. This is the only thing that matters to most. If they don't get the grade they are anticipating, it is the end of the world for them. This is because we grow up believing this information because of the society norm of grades. The grade system is made up of a numerical system that only displays how well you have grasped the lesson. Not how smart you are. A transcript is just how well you have retained certain information throughout your high school and college years. But, a transcript does not show how much you have accomplished outside of the classroom, your life experiences, or what you have done to get to the place you are now. There is a stereotype when it comes to grades. If you have straight A's, then you're really smart, if you have some B's then you're kind of smart but not super smart, and if you get C's you just aren't smart enough. Although grades can be important, they don't represent you and what you are capable of. This is important for students in any grade level to understand because like previously stated, your grade is just how well you have grasped the lesson that the teacher has taught. Its how you met the teachers standards in the classroom, its not defining you as a person. A letter will never define you. That is something that everybody has to start to understand. Your grades do not correspond with your intelligence. Instead of worrying about your grade you should aim to gain new knowledge over the course of the semester and not worry abut the grade itself.
Different people will always have different strengths. Some children were naturally born to excel at certain things that others are not. It does not mean that you can't try to excel in your weakness. A business major probably couldn't pass a nursing test if it was just thrown at them. Just because a student can't pass that test does not mean that they are dumb. Business is their strong suit, something that they could excel in that others can not. Just because some people can perform better at certain subjects than others does not mean that they should feel dumb because the grade they get is not who they are. Its just a letter.
This generation of students are becoming obsessed with numbers and the grading system that they are forgetting about the bigger things in life. Grades are temporary but they are forgetting about their self worth. If they get one bad grade then they might automatically be upset and think that their self worth just went down because of their obsession with the numbers. But, the internal strengths are what matters most. We as students are letting our grades constantly get to us. If it isn't as high as we are hoping, we get down on ourselves, if its getting close to the end of the semester, we get stressed. It seems like grades area constant factor in why we are stressed about school.
Its not only about the grades you get while in school. Its about the tests you have to take in order to apply for a university. High school juniors and seniors are also stressing about the ACT and SAT. I know from a personal experience I was stressing over those exams like no other. Those exams are what determines what university you can get into. If you get a low score, its possible you will not get into your dream school. Although, getting a low score risks your chances of getting into your top college, it still does not define your intelligence. There are many factors that can go into why you performed poorly on an exam. There are many students out there that struggle with test anxiety or even a learning disability. I know because I am one who struggles with test anxiety myself. You can get everything that your teacher is teaching, but once it comes to the exam you blank. This is something that you can not control. This is something that some teachers or professors do not take into consideration while grading. Students should put more time and effort into thinking and problem solving skills instead of trying to cram a bunch of knowledge into a short period of time to try to get the best grade on a test.
As a student entering college, I believed that grades were the only thing that was going to determine my success in life. I believed that the grades I got were the only thing that were going to make me stand out and be better than everybody else. But, as I completed my first semester of college, I started to realize that your grade compared to somebody else in the class does not matter. Being in a lecture hall with 250 plus students, the professor does not just focus on one student. Everybody is all the same. Most students have the same grade as others in the class so having a good grade does not make you stand out, or better than someone else because they are doing the same as you. This was hard for me to wrap my head around because all through my high school, I was constantly being told that my grades were the only thing that mattered by fellow students, teachers, advisors, and even my parents.
Grades defining you as a person and defining your intelligence is a growing issue. Student are starting to believe that if they don't get the best grades then if will define them as dumb. That is not the case because students have many strengths that outweigh their weakness in one class. Just because a student gets a low grade in one class does not mean that they are less intelligent than everybody else. People think that your grades determines how smart you are, if you will have a higher paying job, and how successful you will be in life. Students need to start realizing that grades don't define any of these.