Learn to be Proud of Your “Bad” Grades if You Earned Them
I just read a post and subsequent comment discussion over at Mind Petals: Youth Entrepreneur Network that talked about A students vs. B students.
“‘B’ students are innovative, risk takers with short attention spans…’A’ students are focused and more likely to be grounded.”
A little story from my personal experience…
I seemed to be that B/C student…it was always my contention that if you live your life to someone else’s arbitrary standards, then you can never find your own personal success. Although I easily excelled through my other classes (graduated with a 3.01 GPA), all throughout college I specifically struggled through Calculus, Finance, and Accounting classes. It was in those courses that I accumulated 2 D’s, 2 C’s, 2 B’s, and only 1 A. These classes were incredibly difficult for me. I’m not a numbers person at all, and I actually ended up skipping class quite a few times because I just found it so uninteresting to listen to the lectures.
The day before the tests, I remember studying for hours and hours and hours many times pulling all nighters, teaching myself everything from the textbook as I had little/no lecture notes. Admittedly a horrible way to study, but that’s how I did it. I would get back tests with scores that another student would find shameful and embarrassing. But to me, those scores meant a lot. You see, the fact that I could study everything (learning everything on my own) the night before and still manage to pull off a 65%+ impressed me. I had proven to myself that if I wanted something bad enough I could get it. I could afford to take a big risk as long as I was willing to put in the hard work to pull off the victory. And I did it. Over and over again.
It wasn’t about the grade at all. I guarantee I “learned” a lot more than the vast majority of my class’ GPA “leaders.” Those classes taught me all about self-accomplishment, self-motivation, self-determination, self-reliance, and self-discovery. And to me, that’s what the “college experience” is all about anyways.
Well, wait! What if I ever need to analyze a financial statement, solve a partial differential equation, or differentiate pricing inventory under periodic and perpetual inventory systems ? Oh, well, that’s easy! I’ll just ask my business partner. See, that’s something else I learned. Surrounding yourself with people smarter than you makes you stronger. He’s one of those A students… 
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on February 28th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
This is spot on with my views and mirrors my story as well.