I might probably be repeating what you already know, but I cannot emphasize this enough. Coming from an Asian family, my sisters and I have always been pressured to achieve the best, and although it resulted in three awesome children, that kind of tough love might not work for everyone. Last week was my last university class ever. Technically, I've already graduated. The problem is that I've based the past 20 years on grades that once I was out of the system, I didn't know how to push myself forward. My incentive were grades, and I based my self worth on it.
Let's get to it:
From the moment we were born, we were given rewards. Incentives in the form of mushed sweet potatoes or chocolate chip cookies. We were given nice things to make us feel proud of our prior actions. When we entered into the educational system, we learned more than just the alphabet and long division, we learned how to measure our self worth. Before this, we would look in the mirror giddily and point at our reflection like a parakeet, but once numbers and alphabets were stamped on our report cards, we began to look at ourselves differently. An A stood for Amazing, and an F stood for Failure. Or in the case of many Asian households, an A stood for Average. So we became slaves to letters and numbers at the end of every semester. Slaves to the looks of disappointment our parents and teachers gave. Slaves to the system that rewards our work more than our learning and passion.
If drudging through standardized tests in high school wasn't bad enough, we were reminded time and time again how important our GPA is. School counsellors had private chats with at risk students and the course coordinator would reiterate the gravity of the SATs. Our future was confined in sheets of paper, and our intelligence by the 4 digits that it produced.
What happens after you get into the university you dreamed of (or settled for)? Well, you start again. You begin the slaving, the studying, the result-waiting. Only this time, you put more effort in. This is the big leagues after all. There is no room for dilly-dally. So you study hard, you get that 3-point-something GPA that will look good on your resume—except, what was that? It's unnecessary? You don't put your GPA in your resume?
Oh my oh my, all that hard work only to churn out something that future employers wouldn't even bother to look at. But you're proud of your 3.9 GPA from Columbia University and decide to print the numbers on your resume anyway (in bold!). Will the employers care? Maybe, maybe not. But students applying for the same job sans GPA numbers seems to have it all the same.
Then you graduate. You waddle up to the stage in your oversized gown wearing a graduation gap a size too small. You hold that big rolled up diploma and grin widely at your parents and siblings in the crowd. You did it!
But what did you do?
That diploma is a piece of paper that you earned very much so, but once you graduate, you'll realize that printing your intelligence on an A3 sheet of paper is quite ridiculous. A degree means that you have learned, understood, and are an expert in a certain field. But it does not define who you are. And it's so, so, so difficult to grasp this concept because I'm having a hard time doing that myself.
For so long I have equated my personality and self worth with my grades. I was known as the smart one back in elementary school. To get into university, I made sure I had the best grades in order to be considered joining their program. From my first semester there, my parents enforced the idea that if I worked hard, I would get all High Distinctions. But my hard work resulted in varied grades, and I wasn't used to that. I wasn't used to being an average student simply because that meant I was an average person. But after graduating, I realized the absurdity of it all. I tried so hard to be this intelligent, over-achieving person that I ended up being a simulacrum of her, and I hated myself for it.
When I started interning as a copywriter at an ad agency a few weeks ago, no one asked about my grades. They didn't ask about my final GPA or what score I received on my most recent project for my Production Project class. All they cared were the ideas I brought to the table and the level of creativity that I produced. They didn't see me as my grades, and I was so used to having people paint me with my academic intelligence that I didn't know what to make of this. I realized that I was a person whose grades are only a very small facet of my personality. I am someone who writes, reads, draws, paints, plays instruments, swims, drinks, dances and loves. And I've spent the last two decades negating all my other traits to put my grades as number one. I was defined by my GPA, and on October 17th, I was suddenly defined by everything else.
It's hard to wrap around this especially if you're at the top of your class. I mean, when I received the highest mark for several classes in high school, it was difficult to get off my high horse. After all, I was praised for my brilliance while the failing students were called lazy, stupid, or whatever adjective that describes someone who doesn't reach the subjective standard of intelligence. Nevermind the fact that they were passionate about something other than algebra or arts.
I'm not saying that grades aren't important. Sure they are, but only to a certain extent. They are not our personality and our self-worth. It's not the measuring stick for everything in life. Because I had this subtle itch in the back of my head after graduating, and it's my concern for my self worth. What else do I have to judge myself by other than my grades? Well, now its time to judge myself by who I am. It's going to take some getting used to, but if someone had told me this earlier, I wouldn't have such a hard time accepting my passion, my talents, and my intelligence throughout school.
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