We are NOT Our Grades

Growing up, my mum always told me that there’s a whole world outside of school and that I am defined by who I am, not only by my marks.

Growing up, school always told me there is nothing more important than my books and how much information I can memorize in a short period of time.

Believe my mum.

Spending most of my life in Sutphin, Queens, New York I was able to grow up with the same students I went to school with which led me to discover a pattern. I found two categories of students: Those who defined themselves by their GPA and those who defined themselves by who they are as a whole. This seemed to have a direct correlation to how happy these students were. Growing up, I have watched countless students believe that they were not worth much just because their grades were not perfect or as good as they wanted them to be even though they were actually incredible people.

In my junior year of high school I remember running into an old friend from middle school on the way to the temple where we stopped to talk for a while. I remember him telling me how he “probably wouldn’t result to much in life” because he couldn’t hold up his grades and had to drop out of honors. When I asked him if he still played the piano and continued sports his face light up. This had me thinking, did he forget that he was brilliant outside of school or did he never consider his talents?

In my senior year of high school, filling out college applications with my friends in the college office, we were making fun of the questions various colleges asked when one of my friends asked about our talents outside of school – a question from one of her applications. I remember trying to think of something I was good at and I could not think of a single thing until one of my friends said she could read, write, and speak in another language which everyone thought was fascinating and I realized that I had completely forgotten that I was fluent in multiple languages. We went around sharing our talents: bending a thumb backwards, cooking, doing derp eyes, juggling, texting at the speed of light- and it made me realize that I did not consider a lot of the things I do as talents.

I feel that being a student in such an academically competitive world, it is often hard to realize and remember that there is a lot more to us than how well we are able to score on exams. I feel that we can all relate to this scenario: When you get a high test grade you feel on top of the world but when you score badly you put yourself down as a whole. Why is that? Has that one test grade or failed class taken any of your talents away? Then why is everything out the window when a couple of numbers are not as high as you would like it?

The students of University at Albany are packed full of crazy, hilarious, and outrageous talents. If you would like to represent your talent, I will be tabling on the 19^th of April in front of the Campus center (mini fountain). Hope to see you there !

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About the Author:

Simonti B.
Class of 2019
Major: Intended - Biology
Blog Theme: Writing My Own Chapter 

 

Please Note: The views of our student bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the UAlbany Advisement Services Center. These are their stories and their voices.