<p>Some people here think it’s normal to be a superachiever every year of one’s life. The fact is, it’s not possible. EVERYONE is going to have periods in their life of underperformance. EVERYONE. It’s better that the period of underperformance happen early on (high school or earlier) than later. If the period of underperformance happens earlier on, the person doesn’t go through life with a false sense of entitlement and does not take success for granted. Some things just have to be learned the hard way. And some things just aren’t as important as they seem.</p>
<p>Expending prohibitively Herculean effort to be a superachiever is not sustainable and is analogous to a Federal Reserve that attempts to eliminate any hint of a recession or financial market downturn by injecting excessive liquidity into the economy. This leads to imbalances and strains and eventually results in economic disaster. Examples of this include Japan since 1990 and the post-housing-bubble US (which will be played out in the years to come). Similarly, students to expend prohibitive and unsustainable Herculean efforts to achieve academically end up with imbalances and strains that cause them to just run out of gas. I know - I was one of the biggest drinkers of the Academic Performance Cult Kool-Aid back in high school. (That said, my counterparts of today make my old superachieving self of 15-20 years ago look like Ferris Bueller or Zack Morris in comparison.) I ran out of gas in college. In retrospect, I’m surprised that I graduated with my BSEE in 4 years with a GPA of 4.13/5. I’m surprised I didn’t do much worse, but it helped to avoid the hardest classes. Oh, and my senior project was probably the biggest joke in the history of the department. It wasn’t until I became an amateur radio operator after graduation that I could relate to anything I studied. Without that practical aspect, it was just formulas to memorize and meaningless problem sets and lab exercises to plow through.</p>
<p>The things I tend to regret are my attitudes that interfere with learning, such as valuing the trappings of learning (GPA) over actual learning. I have NEVER EVER had regrets about not studying hard enough, not doing better on an exam, not taking a certain course, etc.</p>