I came to UNC programmed to try hard: a 4.0 perfectionist with a full AP schedule, top 1 percent of my class and on a first-name basis with my high school teachers. My numbers and letters were perfect on paper yet my mind was a scrambled mess of stress, struggling to keep up.
“Just get one B and I promise you’ll be happier,” my dad would constantly reiterate as I was pulling another all nighter, wondering how such a mindset was possible.
However, now as my first semester at UNC concludes, I have never agreed more with an ideology. Here I find myself only an unnamed individual to my professors in a 400 person lecture, desperate for a B in the “weed-out” classes.
Reflecting, feelings of being humbled partnered with anxious and intense disappointment now fall away to reveal a confusing emotion: relief. I am relieved my GPA is no longer a 4. With perfection now unattainable, the suffocating weight of potential superiority has left me alone.
It’s not necessarily about lowering your standards, it's just about recognizing that circumstances have changed and schools like UNC are notably difficult. A perfect GPA can’t be expected in a system geared toward exposing its undergraduates to failure.
The social and personal pressures to excel in everything a student is exposed to creates a risky discrepancy between pushing oneself and completely overworking. The mental toll experienced from strenuous studying, barely seeing the seasons change as one is holed up in the library until the 2 a.m. shutdown time, is unhealthy and unnecessary.
The constant headaches and DayQuil taken as a result to cope with overworking young bodies and minds is simply a reminder of the flawed world we live in that normalizes such an anxiety-inducing life. Waiting until the short months of summer to feel any sort of joy is a normalization based on extremity.
The most hypocritical part of this unrelenting grasp that GPAs have on the world is the fact that when seeking help for the adverse effects of constant studying, these concerns are downplayed. Being stressed about grades isn’t a “real problem,” yet getting bad grades could change the entire trajectory of your life because of the unnecessary emphasis on them.
With a fear of failure categorizing a young adult's life, little personal growth and self-reflection is possible. Unfortunately, sometimes hard work simply falls short. That's okay. If everyone was perfect at everything, there would be no career specialization or redirection based on interests. Imperfection forges adaptability.
