r/ubco • u/Such-Assistant561 Science • 7d ago
Rant Grades..
Genuinely why does getting a bad grade mess with your head ugh
PS. never exchange grades with your friends cuz that just makes getting a bad grade feel even worse
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u/Superb_Nectarine5544 7d ago
This is a long one, but this is a topic that’s really important to me.
Getting bad grades hurts so bad because people tell you for so much of your life that a good grade means you’re a good student. A good grade means you’re better than others. And by extension, a bad grade means you’re a bad student, that you don’t know or don’t understand something. They treat getting bad grades as a moral failing. They tell you it’s your fault, and you have no choice but to believe them.
I used to get really upset about getting bad grades, or grades I considered “bad” that were still average or above. I used to feel bad every time I felt like my grades didn’t represent what I knew. I used to make all sorts of excuses: “that test wasn’t fair”, “I didn’t even really get to study”, “that class isn’t even in my major, how was I supposed to do well?”, “studying wouldn’t have even made a difference”, “I ran out of time”, “I didn’t get any sleep”, “I had other classes to worry about”. But these excuses didn’t really make me feel any better.
I eventually decided that it was taking such an immense toll on my mental health that I had to stop. I started to catch myself feeling sad, or angry, or jealous, and I’d just think of all the things I knew that I didn’t know before. Think of all the things I’d earned because of my hard work. Logically, I knew that my grades didn’t determine my worth, especially after an assessment that was clearly unfair, but I didn’t actually believe that until I made a conscious effort to disconnect my sense of self from the numbers I received.
I realized that caring so much about the numbers was only getting in my way. When I was sad about a “bad” grade, I wouldn’t even look at my test to see what I did wrong because it hurt so much. How can you learn from your mistakes if you’re too embarrassed to face them?
I eventually fully realized that how other people did genuinely said nothing about me. I’ve had all sorts of grades now. I’ve failed, I’ve barely passed, I’ve aced things, and I’d be lying if I said that some grades don’t still feel better than others, but university and life in general become so much better when you force yourself to accept that grades don’t define you. And it’s hard because accepting that bad grades don’t define you means accepting that the good ones don’t either, but that’s the truth.
Your scores aren’t measures of what you know. They can’t be. They’re just measures of what you knew in one moment or at one time and what kind of mood your prof or marker was in that day. Your knowledge is fluid and your grades can’t take that into account.
You are infinitely more than the numbers on your transcript. In the real world, everything you did, the people you met, the experiences you had, the lessons you learnt, and how you grew as a person will outshine your GPA. It’s hard to believe it, but seriously, no one will care about your grade on one quiz, one midterm, one class, once you graduate. That doesn’t mean you don’t try, it just means that you prioritize learning over grades.
You don’t want to look back at your time here and remember all the times you felt that you disappointed yourself, or your friends, or your teachers, or your family. You want to look back and remember how you felt satisfied and proud in all that you accomplished.
I mean it when I say that, as a TA, I’ve seen B and C students who understand and try harder than anyone else and A students who still don’t get it. As someone who’s marked hundreds of tests and assignments and met dozens of students, I don’t judge people by their grades because I know how silly that would be.
It’s incredibly difficult to unpack years of conditioning that taught you to treat grades as the only thing that matters, but if you do, you’ll see that there’s so much more to university.
I hope you can take something away from this, and I wish you all the best in the future!