The Last Fall

College classes don’t actually start for a couple of weeks, but I wanted to just reflect on what this next semester all entails. It’s slightly exciting, slightly scary.

I’ve taken a couple of summer online classes. I’m studying to take the German Language CLEP test next week which, pray for me on that one. And then I’ll be getting right back into the swing of things from there.

There were certainly moments this summer that seemed to drag on for years. With summer, that’s inevitable regardless of what you might be doing. But in other respects, now I’m amazed by how August is already here, and I will be starting classes in just a few short weeks.

I’m excited to see the people that I haven’t seen since last fall again. Summer is always difficult to try and coordinate plans with others (heck, I’m not great at it during any other time in the year, either), and since I was abroad in the spring, I don’t know what sort of adjustment period I’ll have now back in the States, if any. But I’m at a point with myself where I really want to go out and do things with others. There’s been up’s and down’s in my interest in socializing, but right now I just want to see and talk with everyone I can, invite people over to my apartment, get in a car and keep driving forever.

Ah yes, I have an apartment off-campus now which is another change I’m excited for. No more shower shoes, first off. I cannot wait to just have a space to call my own and go back to every day. A place I can keep to my standards of cleanliness (or try) and feel like it’s uniquely mine. Of course it’s temporary for the school year, but just having furniture in a bare space that isn’t university property is a nice feeling.

I also plan to be involved in some new projects this school year. I’ll be the campus Peace Corps ambassador and I want to kick start the campus chapter of NAMI, both causes I am very passionate about. It’s different than from what I’ve been doing my first two years, but I think that’s what makes it so exciting. A fresh start to the end. A way of signing off my time as an undergraduate by hopefully making a lasting difference.

Do I fear that taking my final classes in Media and Journalism might be interesting to say the least? I guess. While I’m finishing my degree in the field, I know have a much better idea of where I want to end up in the coming years, and that does not involve staying in the media world itself. It’s not for me, and that’s okay. But I do think the classes will still teach me more about how to interact and share with the world. Hopefully I can be of some help for younger students who might fall into my shoes in having doubts and major stumbles trying to enter journalism because they sure didn’t tell me anything. There’s one thing earning classroom credits, and there’s another thing teaching others the wisdom you’ve gained through life.

Perhaps the weirdest feeling I’m dwelling upon is the fact that it doesn’t feel like I’m almost done with college. I don’t feel like I’m old enough or qualified enough to say that I only have two semesters left. I am in an awkward phase of simultaneously feeling like I’m too young and quite old. But I chose to finish this part of my education early, but that comes with its own challenges. I have to make sure people take me seriously. That they know I’m not just getting done early because maybe I didn’t like college or I’m going for a less demanding degree. I’ve worked hard already, and that isn’t stopping anytime soon.

This summer was necessary for me to look upon the coming semester with the belief that I can do this, I can make my ambitions reality, and I can overcome whatever might arise. I can admit when I’m feeling overwhelmed, and I can know when to push myself to do more. I’m not perfect by any means, but when you’ve seen a lot of darkness, the simplest of transitions like starting college classes becomes blindingly radiant.

So cheers to what may come. To the inevitable stress and anxiety of assignments, tests, and obligations. To the tired mornings when a lecture feels like listening to white noise.

Cheers to the enlightening conversations with friends. To the sense of accomplishment from finishing long papers and receiving a better-than-expected grade. To the fulfillment of engaging with others and doing activities that provide joy and passion.

Cheers to it all. Regardless of what you might be doing in the next days, weeks, months, years, there is something worth celebrating and looking forward to. Any moment can become one of transition, change and growth. We just have to change our perception to see it as such. And that just makes the roller coaster of life that much more exciting.

Take care, and keep the faith. -Allie

How to Improve Your (Systemic) Grades

One wouldn’t think being in Canada is much different than the States. The college experience should be fairly similar, and the classes themselves shouldn’t be too much to adjust to.

While studying at Bishop’s University, I expected similar class formats and assignments like my past three semesters in South Dakota. Luckily, I am very familiar with writing papers and a typical lecture format. However, compared to most of my previous classes, the only grades on most of my syllabuses are a single term paper, a midterm, and a final.

With so few assignments weighing upon passing each course, the minimal workload leads to questions of the value of grades themselves. How important is a college GPA, especially after throwing a mortarboard in the air? Should students care more or less about the letters on their transcripts? Students should do their best in their work, but all colleges should emphasize the value of learning over traditional grading standards.

Grades are very arbitrary measurements of success. An A at one school in one location may look drastically different somewhere else. Over time, public universities have seen a grade inflation, giving higher grades for work that would’ve received lower grades in the past. This makes it more difficult to identify the best students since more people are given the highest possible grade. In fact, according to a recent study by the Teachers College Record, 43% of letter grades given are A’s. Less work and effort is now worthy of higher grades, demonstrating how slippery the grading slope can be. When colleges portray a GPA as a crucial measurement of success, students become stressed and deprioritize their mental health and moral values. Stanford News reported that cheating is closely linked to the social pressure put on students to prize high grades over education and other values, including creativity and their personal well-being. Education has become a competition fueled by stress and anxiety derived from a short-sighted fascination with graded achievement.

If the primary grading system higher education uses is so subjective, many people may question the value of even paying the hefty costs of tuition. College itself isn’t mandatory. People choose to invest their time and money toward a degree. Such expenses lead many to question the value of a college education altogether. According to Collegeboard, the most popular reasons for obtaining a college degree are to get a good education and to get a good job after graduation. Does that degree still have value and fulfill these purposes? TIME Magazine says that 65% of college alumni agreed their educations were worth the cost despite the growing popularity of technical institutions and online degree programs. The campus environment exposes students to new ideas and people that can help them expand their resumes. Different activities, volunteer and outreach programs, job fairs, and, appropriately, studying abroad all make attending a four-year institution worth it.

Choosing to attend college isn’t the problem here: the problem comes from placing higher importance on a flimsy means of judgment over hard work and learning. Grading serves as an evaluation of student work and a source of motivation to students for continued learning and improvement. Jeanetta Jones Miller’s research discusses  standard-based grading with a student-centered approach. This concept concentrates on students’ learning over individual assignments. When the goal is mastery of standards, it doesn’t matter that students might not complete exactly the same assignments or exactly the same number of assignments because the focus is on what the student is learning rather than how much the student is doing. Not everybody fits into a cookie-cutter system of evaluating progress. By giving students the freedom to make learning an experience that is individualized to them, they can gain greater benefits from discovering new knowledge and strengthening their work ethic necessary for all aspects of life.

Students’ concerns should be less focused on their grades beyond passing and doing well and look ahead to the future. According to USA Today, employers more often look at students’ job experience over their transcript. Networking is also very important. A 4.0 student with no connections within their desired field may struggle finding employment. Ultimately, employers want to see students who are involved on campus and in their community and have an internship or two under their belts. However, employers’ values vary across the field. Some may argue, as seen in US News, that a strong GPA indicates a potential employee who can handle pressure, learns quickly and is motivated to succeed. Additionally, earning a college degree is an exercise in delayed gratification, and students with higher GPAs have demonstrated that they can maintain a high level of focus and results over that time before they receive their payoff.

Students are defined by so much more than a letter or number. The plethora of factors that may determine one’s success in the job market far exceeds a digit on a transcript. Learning to adapt to limited assignments has been a challenge, but this difference between Canada and my home campus, along with a different grading scale altogether, suggests a new way of judging academic performance. All higher education must reemphasize the power of knowledge and the relationships made with peers and faculty that truly support students’ goals and encourage values that transcend the classroom.

Take care, and keep the faith. -Allie

GP…eh?

From as long as I can remember, if I’ve been in school, I’ve been concerned about my grades. No matter how much I just love learning and discussing academic topics I care about, there is always a looming cloud of anxiety and stress hanging overhead.

Growing up, I was one of the “smart kids.” Or nerds, or teacher’s pets, depending on how you see it. I’ve always worked hard to earn the best grades possible. The pressure to do so has come from others and, ultimately, myself.

As if we needed any other arbitrary means for determining our value and self-worth, grades and GPAs and everything else are just another set of numbers and letters that somehow have the ability to make or break those who care enough about them. For those select few, grades can even become an obsession.

Of course stemming from my OCD, perfectionist tendencies, growing up when I had very little self-esteem to stand firm and believe in myself, I used whatever labels and numbers and scales out there to determine my value for me. As I’ve mentioned before, a big portion of my attention went to pounds, inches and calories, but it also dominated by grades. Earning all A’s for every assignment and test. Keeping a 4.0 GPA for my entire educational career, or I would be deemed a failure. I would let my family down who believed so wholeheartedly in me, I would lose any purpose, and I would no longer be good at the one thing I knew I could do.

So academics became a big part of my identity. High school was especially competitive as students in my quite small school fought for top ranks, taking as many AP classes as possible, joining as many clubs and getting leadership positions in those, and trying to outrank each other on our ACT scores. Okay, day-to-day activities were not as directly cut-throat as this, but in my mind, it was a battleground. And when I compared myself to my very intelligent and talented peers, I realized that I didn’t stand out. I wasn’t on top. I was lost in the crowd, a realization which further fueled anxiety and obsession and self-destructive thoughts.

A lot of the problems I saw in my academics stemmed from my own perception. I grew up with an older brother who didn’t have to work too hard to be the top of his class, to receive honors and awards in every activity he did. I couldn’t do that, and even though I love my brother as my best friend, I was ridiculously jealous of how highly others saw him, someone who doesn’t need to study much to ace the test, who just knows so much knowledge, I feel like a dud. To my family, I felt like a disappointment, and despite my hours of work and studying, I still couldn’t be good enough.

I never really opened up about my inner battles every day, and it helped finding and having a good support system in high school (to my high school pals, I cannot thank you enough). I even ended up as the class secretary and graduated high school with a 4.0. I walked out those doors happy to close off that chapter of life, promising myself I wouldn’t pressure myself to that same degree in college like I had for years.

I don’t tend to listen to my own advice. Because yes, thus far I still have a 4.0 in college, an achievement in of itself, with only two semesters left. But I still see the competition around and within me. I see people going and achieving amazing accomplishments and prestige. And I see myself lagging behind. I feel my test anxiety getting worse and worse with every exam. If I receive back anything less than an A, my mind still wanders to regrets of not doing enough, not being better. Getting some points off on an assignment can easily turn a good day into a terrible one in an instant.

In this semester abroad, I find my mindset evolving. I see the end of my education in sight. And while I still care about working my hardest and achieving all I can, I see a lower grade on a test and it doesn’t completely break me. I see the idea of getting a B in a class as less earth-shattering than before. I care more about learning and growing (and of course passing all of my classes) and less about how it translate onto a transcript. It may not seem too crazy, but to me, that is a huge difference. I place higher value on my own health and others than a number that will lose relevance the minute I receive my diploma. That piece of paper doesn’t show the GPA I received. It says I earned the same document as so many others who worked more or less hard than I did to achieve the same thing. Maybe if I was rushing off to graduate school afterwards I would still feel that same tightness in my chest, but for now, that isn’t in the plans, and I cannot begin to describe what a relief that is.

Whether you’re in college or not, we’re all in the same boat. We’re just trying to do the best we can, working hard, living life. I should just be grateful for my intelligence, curiosity, determination, and work ethic. I should applaud others for their own accomplishments and not see those lessening the value of my own hard work. I should do my best in the context of balanced wellness. I should not strive for a fleeting, impossible level that is perfection. And neither should you.

Take care, and keep the faith. -Allie