What is your GPA?

GPA as an identity

When you are a full-time student your GPA can feel like your identity. Your GPA can define you as a success or a failure. Many students allow their GPA to determine their self-worth, living and dying by those fractions of a percentage point which make the difference between an A and a B. A lower-than-expected grade can destroy the confidence you have built up over the term and make you question your belonging on campus or in your major. It can make you doubt that you have accomplished anything eclipsing everything you have learned in the class and nullifying all of your new expertise.

Judgement and vulnerability

Part of being a student is submitting to judgement by others – namely your instructors. Making yourself vulnerable in this way is a huge leap of faith. In giving instructors this much power, you are empowering them to not only teach, but also to guide and correct you as necessary. Opening yourself up to feedback in the pursuit of improvement is a courageous thing to do. Congratulations for taking that leap and making learning a priority.

Defining who you are and what your value is by the letter a professor writes at the top of your paper is exhausting and often demoralizing though. There is a difference between learning from feedback and defining yourself by it. Giving someone else that much authority over your happiness and satisfaction with yourself is foolish at best and dangerous at worst.

Systemic failure

When the objective of learning gets lost in the pursuit of the letter on your transcript, the system of education fails to meet the goals of many students. Did you come to college to achieve a 4.0 GPA or did you come to college to learn more about your field of interest, to meet fascinating new people, to become an adult and to expand your horizons? Grades tend to get in the way of all of those noble ventures and reduce the college experience to the study of what will please each professor and blind striving for the top grade.

Learning vs. grades

When learning and growth are put at the forefront, good grades tend to follow. If you are excited about what you are learning and the classes you are taking, it is easier to put forth your best effort, to motivate yourself to complete the assignments, to show up for class regularly, and to do a thorough job of reading and studying the material. These activities are what makes learning happen.

Conveniently, they are also the activities which lead to good grades. Rather than striving for specific grades and basing your success or failure on your GPA, try striving to learn as much as you can from each class. It will be more enjoyable, you will learn more and you will most likely end up with the grades you wanted in the first place.

Looking forward

Despite the intense focus on grades and GPA while you are in school, few people (if any) will ever ask you for your transcripts once you have left school. People will want to know if you walked out of school with a degree, but the difference between a 3.1 and a 3.7 GPA is largely negligible in the professional world.

Rather than evaluating you on your GPA, people will frequently ask you what you know. They will value your knowledge, your expertise, your love of learning, your curiosity, your resilience, your adaptability, your work ethic, your life experience and your attitude. Developing these qualities while you are in school will set you up for far greater success post-college than even the highest GPA.

What do you think you GPA says about you? Does your GPA really say that about you? Are you placing more emphasis on the grades on your transcript or on the experience you are having in college?