How does grades affect you?

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"Grades don't define you" they say. I used to live by that principle to cover up all the mediocrity that I did while I was studying. I feel lazy in studying at times and that phrase is what I always feed my mind and would serve as my alibi.

One day in the past, one of my facebook friend posted about how he was disappointed with his academics, I then comforted him with that same phrase I used to comfort myself whenever I felt like I'm not doing a good job in school.

But he answered that while it is true that "grades don't define you", grades would have a say about you. That's when it hits hard at me. I realized that would determine how you performed while you are studying and no matter what other people say, it would have something to say when it comes to employment.

Let us not go far and wander around and let's take an example the teacher. In my observation, grades matter in being employed. True, it is not the only basis for employment but it is part of a whole. It would start to how you performed while you are in undergrad.

In facebook, I saw a lot of posts that tells education students to take their studies seriously because grades would take up 20% in the teacher's ranking. It would be beneficial if when you study, you already give your best and take things seriously so it would be easier in the future.

Not only teachers. But other professions too requires a neat and nice piece of transcript. When you hand in your transcript to your possible employer, it would be better if you hand it with confidence and pride, right? The more confident you are with what's inside, the higher the chance of being hired.

For the employer's side, they would find it more convenient to choose the applicant that is already well-versed and has an outstanding performance at school. But, let us take into consideration, that this is only possible when we didn't do anything to alter what's written in our transcripts. Meaning, you are confident that your grades really speaks about you and that you deserve it.

Sometimes, there are those who are what we called as highly favored by the teachers because even if we know that this student doesn't deserve that high remarks, the teacher still gave them. That is when the phrase, "grades don't define you" becomes true.

We should make sure that we live by what grades we are given. We deserve the remarks we are given because when we are hired and employed, our bosses would assume that we really know a thing or two.

On the other side, there are students who believe in the phrase, "grades define you". As a result, they would study and work hard to be able to attain the highest remarks. Of course, this is great and we have high respects for students who value studying that much. But this also causes depression for someone who can't handle the stress and pressure. They would fall into the deep pit of self-pity feeling unworthy and unintelligent. And that is the situation we don't want to happen.

During my time, most of my college friends who were taking up medical courses, accountancy nd engineering would often complain about being burned out. But today, I observed that the rate of burned out students were from highschool. It may be because of the pressure and the difficulty that the online classes bring. We wouldn't really pinpoint the main reason.

Just like every other student, it would be essential to manage time wisely and prioritize the things that needs to be done immediately. Do the things that really matters and minimize comparing your progress with another.

While it is true that grades matter, it is wiser to really learn and discover things. Beyond grades, learning and skills are the focus and the goals. But mental health should also be taken into consideration. Our learnings won't matter if we are not mentally and emotionally well because our mood and emotions toward things are affected.

Learning would be fun when we put our hearts on it and that we are happy and well while we are on the process.

Thank you for reading. Until then!

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