This is the first part of a three part blog. It would be a really long blog if put all together and so, in order to not bore anyone, I have divided it into three parts.
Last night, tired of double integrals and finding volumes under surfaces, I decided that the best way to relax would be to watch soccer highlights for a few minutes. I have learned to pace myself and that for every two hours of hard work, ten minutes of distractions are more than deserved. While watching the highlights of the games of the week, a string of words from the narrator stood out. “Such high expectations can either motivate or weigh a team down.”
As I reflected upon that quote, I realized how true it was. Being in an institution of higher learning, you are faced with expectations coming from all angles. First, there are your own personal expectations, what you want to achieve.
During the past four weeks here, I have learned that I have to be reasonable with the expectations I set for myself. High expectations in high school are completely different from expectations at college. In high school, grades were a reflection of how smart or intelligent you were. Therefore, there was more effort put into the pursuit of a letter grade rather than learning and understanding the material. As I have mentioned before, college is no longer high school.
The game and the players have changed, therefore the expectations need to change. Here, after four weeks, I have realized that a letter grade is nothing more than a numerical assessment that tries to encapsulate your understanding of the material. That’s it. It does not reflect how smart you are but rather how well you understand the material at hand. Here, instead of chasing a letter grade, you are pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself. Grades take secondary role and are not the most important thing. I know that for most of us, this is a hard concept to understand. We are used to seeing a non changing pattern of letter grades and to think that that might change is a scary thought. Believe me, it took a lot of introspect in order for me to understand that I am at Dartmouth to learn, not to get grades.
My expectations have changed dramatically. The perfect GPA is no longer my first priority nor my second. Learning, understanding and being able to apply the concepts I learn are. My second priority is to be involved in campus and be part of this community as much as I am able to. Third, if it is possible to obtain that 4.0, it will come if I work hard, yet, I am happy to say that whatever grades I get, are the product of my effort and understanding of the subject. If those grades happen to be all A’s or a mixture of A’s and B’s, it does not matter as long as I know learned as much as I could along the way.
If there is something that I want the reader to obtain from this is the fact that grades and knowledge are not the same thing. Learn to love knowledge, it is the greatest thing someone can give you, well, besides life but that’s another issue. Life is not about grades, life is about what you know and what you do with that knowledge to make this a better world. Keep that in mind.