<p>So this is my question. Please make your answers as practical as possible:</p>
<p>Considering everything you can think of in terms of future careers and lives, do you believe that when it comes to schools and all this, it is in our (your) best interests to be academically “successful” (top grades), or to be challenged academically and potentially do badly?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Is this an essay for your school? Sounds like the Senior Exit Project at my school.</p>
<p>as far as personal development and character, i would say challenged and potentially do badly. (One of) The best biography(ies) ever is Ulysses S grant’s autobiography, and as a president he was a complete failure. i believe this is due to the fact that wisdom comes from failure, not from success. Likewise, there are no famous biographies or even sayings from Alexander the Great because although he was wildly successful, he had not encountered failure, and therefore had no chance to develop wisdom.</p>
<p>This isn’t for an essay or anything. This is just for me.</p>
<p>The best strategy may be to simply do what interests you most during college. Where your interests are strong is also where you will have a higher likelihood of success. Joseph Campbell called this “following one’s bliss,” but even he regretted this statement becoming an oversimplified new age slogan. The idea is that if you have great interest, you will have the problem of motivation mastered preemptively. Also, what you are engaged in will then likely be a proper fit for your specific personality. A perennial issue often arises, however, when there is a perceived – and sometimes real – possibility that monetary returns for certain disciplines are potentially modest. So, you may need to decide if you are willing to give up a top preference for an academic major in order to set up a lucrative career path in terms of money. Some people are willing to accept a simply passable income in order to do what they truly love, others compromise and choose a second or third choice of major in order to increase the odds of bigger monetary rewards down the road. So, do what you see to be the right thing for you irrespective of the perceived likelihood of getting high grades, because whatever path you choose, decent enough grades can be accomplished through sustained work habits. The work will just be more enjoyable and manageable if what you choose as your major is also a good fit to your underlying nature.</p>
<p>I mean, your question is creating a dichotomy where there isn’t one.</p>
<p>It’s true, the majority of people that are driven enough, talented enough, and creative enough to ‘succeed’ (that’s another debate, heh), are those who got the good grades in school - the same traits that made them succeed in life are the ones that made them succeed in school (which is the rationale for using grades and test scores to evaluate people).</p>
<p>And it’s true, sometimes failure does inspire mind blowing levels of success, not often, but it happens.</p>
<p>Everyone is different in terms of ability and interest - for me personally, it would be best if I excelled in everything I did.</p>
<p>Being Academically Successful doesn’t mean that you’ll not learn anything or get challenged.
Everything winds down to time in the end.
If you are challenged, you’ll need more time to learn and be a master of that field of learning.
Of course you’ll not get it at first, but failing is a good motivator to keep someone to keep studying until they do understand it all. It’s a trail and error process. What you know already is something you don’t need to look over again, and give you more time to focus on things you know you need to learn a second time.
Otherwise, there’s no point of education if everyone knew everything. Schools are meant to be a new field where you don’t have to know everything. If you did, then you shouldn’t be in school and be should be allowing someone else the opportunity to learn something new.</p>