By Kyle Andree C. Bolhano | Photojournalist
Vol. XCI No. 10
Nov. 22, 2019
After a seemingly long, pressuring, and sometimes haunting, final exam, there’s only one thing left on every student’s mind, which is their grade. Everyone is worried about how they performed in class. After, the grades will be posted. Yet, some students will find their grades unacceptable, and so begin to argue with their teacher. Misunderstandings could happen when grades are calculated by the teachers, and it can be resolved by simply clarifying it. But to some who really deserved a grade lower than their expectations, they will start complaining and soon after, they will scurry behind the safe haven of the quote “It’s just a grade. It won’t define my future.” That quote becomes common among students, and that quote evolves into a mindset. Students will stick to the idea that they can still be successful in life even though they perform less in class. Yes, there are people who are successful despite dropping out of school. Yet, students tend to naturally just ignore the fact that those successful people aspired for their dreams and did not stick to a ‘cowardly’ mindset.
But with the saying “Grades doesn’t define ones future”, will it always be a cowardly mindset?
It was never such a cowardly mindset in the first place. In fact, there are a lot of stories behind it. Some inspiring, some tragic, and some is just plain stupid.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerburg are just a few people with inspiring stories which relates to the quote. They aspired to do great things despite dropping out of school and now they are far more successful than any other graduates. But these inspiring true stories are viewed differently by certain individuals. While others were able to lift themselves up above among the rest, some thought the quote will do it for them. These types of people just stick to the saying without even trying. Here is where the quote becomes a toxic mindset. People will try to blame the system, their economic situation, the school, teachers, and others. They are hopeless, unless someone helps them, which is uncommon in some cases.
In an academic sense, grades do define your future. It is the only thing that reflects your performance in school, no matter what the reasons may be. Reasons such as “I wasn’t able to comply because I was sick” or “I was late all the time because I still have to walk for hours before I reach school”, these are just factors that affect how you perform. In the end, it’s up to us whether we are still able to cope up, strive, and aspire with our academics or not.
