Graduation Expectations Ruined

Since I am about to graduate in a few days, I was reviewing the school’s website regarding graduation recognition to see which type of honor’s title I would end up graduating with. It turns out, that I am not graduating with honors at all, and that was extremely disappointing to me. After all, I had mostly received A’s, 3 B’s and one D in Intro to Programming Logic, but we don’t talk about that minor mishap. Moving on! I accepted my fate and continued on my journey and at the end of the journey I was told that they take your grades from all prior college institutions. I’m ashamed to say, that I didn’t do as well as I did the second time that I went to college.

Reviewing my transcripts, I see that I tried to take 7 classes at one time. I ended up withdrawing out of 3. I mean, what was I thinking?! Maybe that I had done it in high school and that college would be no different? WRONG! I did do okay one particular semester when I chose to take 6 classes, but my classes included Jazz Dance, Pre-Calculous Algebra, Singing Commodores, Concert Chorale, Tennis, and American National Government. Guess which class I failed? Yep! Pre-calculous Algebra. I think I do remember that semester being one of the most fun that I had, after all, I had mostly fun classes.

Back then, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was getting an Associate in Arts degree in General Studies because I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I knew I liked the arts, specifically singing, but my parents didn’t believe in me trying to make singing a career and I agreed. After all, what where my chances on making it on American Idol?

So here we are, at my final semester of college and I have received an email every single semester stating that I am an honor student. I’m going to have a total institution GPA score above 3.70, but my overall GPA score will be around a 3.30. I need at least a 3.5 GPA in order to receive one of the Cum Laude Honors. It’s still an improvement from when I started the bachelor’s program, but it’s not going to be enough. Does this score really matter though? I know that you can brag to your first employer about your GPA scores, but for me, it was a personal accomplishment and I thought that I would finally walk with an honorary ribbon around my neck for graduation.

It turns out that this has now become a personal lesson in life, that everything that you do matters. The way that you behave during a certain time in your life, matters. It’s not to say that you can’t start over after you have made poor choices in life, just don’t expect to be recognized for your hard work if you haven’t completed it all along.

This now reminds me of a conversation that I had with one of my professors who asked me why my “A” mattered so much to me. She grew up being told that a “C” was all she needed in order to pass her classes and it worked for her and she has been very successful in her career. I grew up with the notion that anything below an “A” made me mediocre and that I shouldn’t be happy with that. That I should keep pushing myself until I reached higher and higher. Is there really a right or wrong way to go through college or high school? As long as you learn from that experience to take your job seriously and follow through with all of the jobs that you are given to the best of your ability, can they really demand anything else from you? After this week, the letters GPA will never matter again, unless I choose to get a master’s degree, which I currently have no plans for. What we take with us after college are simply the lessons learned on how to complete work using the knowledge that we have learned during our time in college. If you are about to complete your college career with me, well, congratulations! That in itself is an accomplishment and you should be very proud. If you are close behind or just starting, keep going! You have got this! The sense of accomplishment that you will feel at the end is not something that numbers can measure. It is something that you will eternally feel grateful for. A sacrifice worth making.

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