Looking Back: Academics

“It’s weird,” I tell a friend a couple years back, “the longer we’re in school, the less we seem to care about grades.”

Flashback 6 years ago: It’s senior year and I’m up until 2:30am a week for third-period AP Economics (it switched to lunch period during second semester). Why? I don’t think I could have told you either.

Third year into college and beyond: I sleep. Even if I have two homework sets due the next morning and have to submit a project progress report afterwards, I’m gonna get my sleep.

A part of it is avoidance: I just don’t tend to think very much about a letter grade. If there’s one thing that my Dad’s drilled into my head other than "don't give up" and "stay focused", it’s the fact that “all you can do is your best”. So at the end of everything, I take a look at myself and if my work was reflective of my best effort within my boundaries of well-being, I am satisfied.

Another part of it is understanding the Big Picture. I think I’m going to choose to trust in God’s control of the world rather than be driven by fear – of being lesser than my peers, of not getting that cool job, of not being accepted in both.

One last thing (mainly for the Cal folks): guys, we’re freakin’ blessed to be where we are. We have an amazing opportunity to study at the best public university in the world (ok, I'm a bit biased with that statement). 99.99% of the world will never get anything close to what we have. (That being said: what are we going to do with this gift? I hope and pray we don’t keep it to ourselves.)

Looking back, it’s been rather freeing, moving out of this paradigm of striving and academic bondage and into gratitude and security.