Why I regret getting straight A's in college
blog.penelopetrunk.com
blog.penelopetrunk.com
Too bad these types of hypotheticals are wholly unrealistic. I think your standard straight A student (especially a straight A college student) would have a hard time not making straight A's. And it's really that quality (or personality flaw) that makes the grades completely irrelevant. How many C students were running a radio station and participating in the student government simultaneously?
"3. I've forgotten 95% of it."
These two are related. I graduated with a similar GPA, but I never once pulled an all-nighter. I also remember most of it, at least at a conceptual level, if not down to the fine details.
The problem is that students get brainwashed into thinking that grades are the goal, when in fact grades are supposed to be a measure of the real goal, which is learning. I think the English have a good idea with their "gap year." If Americans started doing that, I think it would help a lot of people get perspective on what their actual goals are.
You call that college?
Get 37 A's in math and science and then we can talk.
What's the cube root of 9? What is the minimum number of points needed to determine a plane? What happens in your app if you divide by zero?
On the other hand, what motif did Browning employ in the last stanza? Is man basically good or evil? Which economic theory works best in the third world?
Maybe you're missing the point. If there's no right answer, what's the point of grades?
On a semi-related note, you should understand that answering a question well is different from giving the objectively correct answer. Especially when there is no objectively correct answer.
This is hacker news. You better be precise, accurate, and correct. Or it won't work. And you're toast.
Don't like it? Go watch figure skating. And let me know who wins. If you can.
"What's the cube root of 9? What is the minimum number of points needed to determine a plane? What happens in your app if you divide by zero?"
All those questions only show that you can memorize answers.
"On the other hand, what motif did Browning employ in the last stanza? Is man basically good or evil? Which economic theory works best in the third world?"
These questions show that you have an ability to think. Most of the time when you're doing real development there are little black and white questions. Most of the time it's a matter of trade-offs and using your judgement, experience and intuition to choose a solution.
The point of grades is not to judge how many "correct" answers you have memorized. The point is to reflect the instructors opinion of a) your intelligence, b) the amount of effort you have displayed and c) how much you have learned.
And you can judge how much you have learned not just by having the right answer to every question, but by having solid reasoning behind your answer.
Of course, there are other outlets for working hard, but for many Americans, high school and later college present the most obvious and most consistent opportunities to do so. In fact, the author may have even learned how to work hard in college if he didn't already have that ethic.
Or hang out in the lounge with your latte discussing the merits of Marxism while someone pays your bills.
Please, please, please don't confuse hard work with anything that happens in college. You make the rest of us wish we were still there.
You can work hard at anything. Playing an instrument isn't something I consider work, but it takes hard work to become one of the top musicians in the world.
Consistently trying to be the best at something rather than just accepting mediocrity is important, and not a lot of people have that drive. It's the kind of thing that keeps you from having to tar roofs for a living.
>You make the rest of us wish we were still there.
You must have me confused with someone else. I'm not a student.
There's a middle ground of fellows like him, who are smart enough to get good grades if they work really hard, but think it matters.
The only thing I regret about my college experience is too much time spent reading UseNet. Everything else - staying up late with friends, trying new activities, learning programming languages - was well worth the drop in GPA that resulted.
In the end, you may have to let go of grades to truly follow your passion. Some of the top grad programs are set up in recognition of this.
Now that said, I have no idea how or why this blogger needed to sacrifice her time or sanity to get A's in English. I double majored in English and Math, and I think I got one B in lit the whole time (my overall lit gpa was someting like a 3.85, because there were some A- grades in there as well). It took a bit of doing, but really, you don't have to go to the wall to get A's in a most lit classes.
The Math, on the other hand, was really tough. I got about a 3.5 in the major, because the undergrad calc series throug differential equations made sense, and I could handle applied math pretty well. But math theory (real analysis, abstract algebra, and so forth) was hard as hell. I really struggled for even a glimpse of understanding of this stuff. I studied hours every day, spent hours working in student groups and in office hours solving problem sets, giving it everything I had, and I still got B's in plenty of these classes. In the end, I'm glad I did it, but I could tell I was not Ph.D material in Mathematics.
I agree with edw519 - unless you're doing serious math or science, don't tell me about your super high GPA.
Man, same regret here.
Drop that apostrophe!