When did you see the light at the end of tunnel. I realize that there is an end, but at times I believed there wasn’t one. When did grades stop mattering so much in your lives?
It depends on the person. For me, never. I still am excited to read my annual evaluation every year, and I live for the praise. I am 48!
For my husband, his successful defense of his doctoral dissertation was the last time he was essentially graded, so that was when it stopped mattering for him.
When I entered high school, they mattered a lot. I was valedictorian.
When I entered college, they mattered enough to get into professional school. I was not in the top 50, but I was surrounded by brilliant people.
When I entered dental school, they mattered enough that I passed all four years and received my DDS.
Then they didn’t matter anymore.
Of course, then I had kids…
I have always tried to see grades as evaluations of learning and not a goal in themselves, which may be naïve but it is helpful. Raising kids, I did not look at report cards when they brought them home. I knew who was working.
Alfie Kahn writes some interesting books on this topic.
Agree with @dentmom4 - Grades were important to get to the next level. At this point, I can’t even remember my HS and college GPA and no one asks. But at the time, I probably knew down to three decimal places.
Doing your best , for me , never really stops. I got in to sales so it became a matter of doing well to generate an income, then to become a leader, then to start my own business. I would say “grades” don’t matter anymore in terms of comparing to others but I still have to achieve or we don’t eat.
When I started teaching. After a very short time in the classroom, I realized that grades were just one teeny tiny little part of who each of my students was.
There are so many variables!! Some kids work their tushes off for a 75, others sail through with minimal effort and get those 95’s. Some kids can come up with the answers to a test, but have no common sense. Others can come up with those answers, but have absolutely no idea of how to apply the info from Chapter 6 to the material in Chapter 7.
I’ve written any number of LORs for B and C students over the years-- sometimes far stronger letters than the ones I’ve written for some of my A students.
Board certifications like every 10 years after residency. You have to pass a certain number to pass. Not a grade but learning and improving never really stops
bjkmom what a wonderful post. I had two who sailed through and one who worked sooooo hard but didn’t do as well. I wish you had been her teacher!
My grades don’t matter much to ME anymore…but I currently do long term leave positions in my field…and my grades DO matter to those who are reviewing applications. Even though my last official college grades were years ago, these applications require my transcripts from ALL colleges attended.
So…while it might not matter to YOU, it could matter to others.
I had the opportunity to graduate summa cum laude, but I needed to get an A in a social studies course. There were other courses I wanted to take more. I don’t think it hurt me. I did get highest honors in my major, but that was because I enjoyed the work, and found my thesis research fascinating. Architecture grad school, interestingly was pass/fail. I’ve never worked so hard in all my life, but I did not study for my structures courses nearly as hard as I would have if I’d been getting grades in them. I was a bit disappointed in myself, but when you are job hunting they are looking at your portfolio, not your (non-existent) structures grades. The last time I took something that was graded was in 1991 when I took the architecture licensing exam. They give you number grades, but no one will ever ask to see them. I don’t even know what I got any more - except that I got nearly perfect scores in structures!
Once I got into grad school. My grad school grades weren’t terrific, but no one ever saw them. With PhD programs (assuming you finish) all that matters is your dis, your talk, and your letters.
@mathmom, wow, good job on the structures score! I wish we could work with you - most architects are clueless when it comes to structures.
I was pretty obsessed with grades. Over a 98 unweighted GPA in high school. I got a val scholarship to UT. Then I graduated with high honors in engineering and got a full fellowship to grad school. I was one of those students who had to work HARD for good grades - they didn’t come easily.
And you know what, I’m proud of my accomplishments. I know people say that being val doesn’t matter, but at our 25th HS reunion, people remembered I was val and wanted their photo taken with me! Pretty amazing, since I sure wasn’t in the “it” crowd back in 1980.
I didn’t apply the same expectations to my kids. I only worried when kid #2 was struggling and I was afraid he wasn’t going to graduate from high school. He’s the one who has now been on the dean’s list in college all five semesters!!
@MaineLonghorn your story illustrates what is really valuable in life. Hard work and determination in the face of adversity. Kudos to you.
It’s exactly the profile I look for in any senior leader working for me.
And why I really can get me unhinged when people use the term “grind”. “Math grind”. As a pejorative. They either don’t know much about the how the world works outside of their bubble or who really succeeds in life over the long run.
I would take a Maine Longhorn in my life
My story is similar to that of @MaineLonghorn - I was that HS valedictorian that studied all the time, messed up the curve on the calculus exam, and loved the praise of my teachers. Yeah, I know - a teacher’s pet AND a grind. In college I worked even harder and was elected into Phi Beta Kappa as a junior - again, a real killjoy. Looking back, I think maybe I should have lightened up and lived it up a little more, but that’s just the way I am/was wired.
At first, I was really hard on my D when she didn’t study as hard as I would have studied or when she didn’t seem to care about grades as much as I did. It took me a while to understand that she is who she is (“it took me a while” - and I pride myself on being a quick learner!); she’s not just a younger version of me. She did fine in high school but she was no valedictorian. In college, though, she turned it on and graduated summa cum laude - so perhaps grades did matter to her after all.
When did grades stop mattering? Maybe they mattered longer than they should have.
^Yeah, one time my mom said she considered giving me 20 bucks if I would make a B in a class! And I had stomach aches all the time in high school. I think that’s why I didn’t put pressure on my kids - I didn’t want them stressing out like I had.
@MaineLonghorn… Can you explain why most architects are not good at structures… Lol… Don’t they build structures??? This is a scary thought :))
They never mattered to me. I got great grades without trying both in HS and college so I never focused on them. I did not know I was third in my HS class until two days before graduation, and I did not know I was at the top of my college class until I received an invite to Phi Beta Kappa. I went to beauty school after high school; college was a later fluke. Grades just never figured into anything for me.
I got great grades in HS and college. They helped me get and keep a lot of merit awards for college and law school. In law school, I had to work harder than ever before and realized I could work as hard as possible and generally get a B+ or aim for a better school life balance and get a B-.
I did a lot of amazing things while attending law school, including lots of hikes and camping trips and still got a fantastic job when I graduated from law school. I did have to take and pass the bar exam twice tho—once in CA (since I was there, but in retrospect I’ve never used that license) and again in HI. It was high - stakes pass/fail exam and was thrilled to have only had to take each once.
Grades haven’t mattered since college for me. Reputation and networking and accomplishments have mattered much more.
I think a lot of architects think of themselves more as artists and sculptors. I got into it because I liked math (especially geometry) and art - so it seemed like a logical way to go. My mother’s parents died when I was young, but they’d been architects so I knew it was a thing I could be. I don’t know why it never even occured to me to look at engineering, but I really enjoyed the engineering classes we took in architecture school. Most of my friends didn’t.