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Am I more than the grades that I achieve?

How else can I define and feel better about myself if my academia, at this time, isn't impressive?

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Reply 1
iv been told that im a good student but in exams and things i underperform because of stress and pressure maybe when you took the exams something happened in your life which affected your grades which is why theyre lower than you want them to be

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Original post by ha27
iv been told that im a good student but in exams and things i underperform because of stress and pressure maybe when you took the exams something happened in your life which affected your grades which is why theyre lower than you want them to be

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That is true... I did resit and did not get much better. So that makes me think that I am not that good a student afterall.
Reply 3
Original post by Joyful_soul
That is true... I did resit and did not get much better. So that makes me think that I am not that good a student afterall.


this proves that exams do not allow you to perform to your best which means that stress and pressure may not be something that is you cope with very well so you should try some methods to release the tension in exam halls maybe yoga deep breathing exercises etc
dont bring yourself down all you can do is try your hardest and thats it

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Original post by Joyful_soul
How else can I define and feel better about myself if my academia, at this time, isn't impressive?



If your academia at his current point in time isn't impressive.. Then why don't you work harder?

Secondly.. Who even talks about academia on Christmas day?
Reply 5

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You are not your grades. Youā€™re not how much A stars you have in GCSEs. Youā€™re not the subject you study. Youā€™re not the contents of your pencil case. Youā€™re not your ****ing uniform. Youā€™re the all-studying all procrastination crap of the world


- Tyler Durden
Original post by Binary Freak
If your academia at his current point in time isn't impressive.. Then why don't you work harder?

Secondly.. Who even talks about academia on Christmas day?


People anxious about their future. The problem with having strict entry requirements to university is that it reduces people to their grades and if they don't go to a top uni then they're not worth as much as someone who does, at least that's how it feels. Grades themselves aren't fair; people who are privately educated have a massive advantage and much of it can be to do with upbringing. To be honest when I started at Oxford I felt unworthy because I only had 2A*s at GCSE and I've actually had people exclaim that they're puzzled as to how I got in, even though I got A*A*A at A-Level... Being in that environment is very artificial because in fact those grades are very good and I think this really speaks volumes about society today; we think grades are everything but they're just a fraction of who we are. (I also concur with all the comments about stress and exams).
Grades only make up a small part of the person you are, intellectually.
Everyone is more than the grades they achieve. Any professional with experience in industry will tell you the same thing. Grades are just a way of you proving you can do something or that you understand something. In many industries, you can prove this without grades. In some industries, you can't. However, everybody is a person and a person is an individual and an individual is not summed up just by a bunch of letters, or numbers (thanks Gove :rolleyes:), on a sheet or few sheets of paper.
Reply 9
Original post by Lularose83
Grades only make up a small part of the person you are, intellectually.



It's usually the failers and the poor achievers that say this. We are our achievements if you want to be taken seriously in intellectual circles. Nobodies going to listen to you if you don't have the knowledge to back it up having qualifications is one way to know who is the real deal and who is not.
Grades are everything

Your step subjects should be 100% or you fail at life

If you don't go to Oxbridge you suck and fail at life

If you don't study a stem subject you fail at life

Grades are everything, did I say that?!?!?!
Original post by Mr Wrong
It's usually the failers and the poor achievers that say this. We are our achievements if you want to be taken seriously in intellectual circles. Nobodies going to listen to you if you don't have the knowledge to back it up having qualifications is one way to know who is the real deal and who is not.[/

You are entitled to your own opinion, but I disagree that 'failures' and 'poor achievers' use this as an excuse because 1) grades aren't the only evidence for intellectual capability and 2) certain factors may have impacted the individuals performance in an exam, thus rendering their grade lower than it should have been.

Also, consider the varying difficulties of exams. Are all A/A* achievements equivalent to one another? It's not just about what's written on a piece of paper, someone can't claim to be a genius just because they have all a/a* grades.
I have the same feeling.
I entered AS levels sitting on all A and A* GCSEs, with Oxbridge selecting me for talks about HE.
I entered A2 this year with: C,C,D and E in my AS levels. And now I'm suddenly struggling to get into Uni's that ask for BBB.
All my teachers know I'm a good student, just my academia doesn't show it.

Tbh, I've been rather depressed about this, although I don't show it. So I just keep my head down and try to improve, as hard as it is.
Original post by AdamCee
Grades are everything

Your step subjects should be 100% or you fail at life

If you don't go to Oxbridge you suck and fail at life

If you don't study a stem subject you fail at life

Grades are everything, did I say that?!?!?!


This ^
You are so much more than just a range of grades. Trouble is that schools don't promote things like self esteem lessons and stuff that relates to feeling like a balanced person.
Original post by laurakate1988
You are so much more than just a range of grades. Trouble is that schools don't promote things like self esteem lessons and stuff that relates to feeling like a balanced person.


It's also in a school's benefit to suggest that grades are everything; it improves statistics and the school's position within national league tables. I agree that there should be more of a focus upon individual self esteem and I also think that there should be a greater emphasis on 'finishing' skills such as handwriting (just because I think that educational has become all about grades and not enough about personal and holistic development).
Capitalism. It convinces us that all that is good is bigger, faster, stronger, higher and the pursuit of such is a noble one, I'm not saying it ain't. We all happen to be stuck in a phase of existence that is fairly uneventful (no dinosaurs chasing us, no ice age, imperialism doesn't affect westerners). Consumerism gives us a good reason to keep plugging away: Ski trips, '15 plate Range Rovers, Mortgage in Richmond and one day the kids will be attending Haberdasher's blah blah.

So what does this have to do with you being so glum? Well, many years ago (i'm 35), I too was glum and my poor performance at uni (desmond at 25) left me feeling pretty useless. My 'strengths' or 'passions' just weren't compatible with peoples' version of what matters in the real world. I got a 2:2 because frankly my brain struggled to reconcile that uni was a productive endeavor for me, but I let the pressure of others keep me at Uni. I wanted to be an olympic athlete, so I trained my arse off for 15-20 hours a week, I wanted to be lead guitarist so I learned to shred and jam my own stuff around London and I wanted to own my own business, so I set up a catering company with my cousin, all between 18 and 25. I was compelled to do these things as they breathed life in to me. Not some arbitrary curricula.

I firmly believe most uni courses (pretty much just MBBS) have no use in the real world (unless of course research floats your boat). University in the 21st century is just an economic relic of New Labour, we have let people on platforms convince us that we need to jump through the university hoops. I'm not discouraging you from uni as it can help you off to a good start (not always), but 5 years after you leave uni it won't be a big deal, 10 years after no one will give a **** about your academics, they will only care about the value you provide. I have seen some incredible turnarounds of people I went to school with go on to lucrative careers after resitting GCSEs, doing GNVQs and barely finishing HNDs. The world of academics just wasn't a conducive environment to their strengths, but they were brilliant in so many other ways and once they came in to the real world and learned those other non academic things were of value, they grabbed the bull by the horns.

Modern education that we inherited from Prussia was routed in controlling and organising the growing youth population, eventually it was deemed a way of building vocations to deal with the sudden surge of skill gaps that the industrial revolution brought. It was never about 'you', so many people will not deal with it, their minds, personalities, strengths, passions, desires etc won't be nurtured by it so they will end up glum and depressed. To those folks I say, find stuff to fall in love with that will develop you, bring you to life: creative (sketching, music, photography etc), health (nutrition, blood chemistry/endocrinology),movement (running, weights, sports), logic (programming), entrepreneurship (online/offline), marketing (learn about how humans are compelled to buy) and psychology (learn about the human condition). Go and find like minded people, start a group (offline), connect in the real world in some way. Read and read books, not just online stuff, read books that will move the hell out of you. This will develop you and eventually you will start getting confidence in a world beyond the grades. It exists, it's so much richer than the world with grades
Btw, I failed, spectacularly at my goals of olympic glory, rock godness and being the next Branson. But, engaging in those pursuits educated me more than a dozen degrees and prepared me to provide value when I got to the real world.
Original post by Joyful_soul
How else can I define and feel better about myself if my academia, at this time, isn't impressive?


You are worth a lot more than the grades you got on a piece of paper so please dont let those grades decide your fate. Also there are other options for example Btecs so its not completely the end of the world if you dont get the grades. You did the best that you could and if you have not i guess you have learnt your lesson that its though out there so be prepared...Remember life does not go in a straight line so dont stress of over exam results...as it is not all about going to Cambridge or oxford-you dont have to go there to make something good out of your life so do what suits you.

Edit:Always Remember "Winners are to busy to be sad, to positive to be doubtful, to optimistic to be fearful, and too determined to be defeated."
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by l1lvink
I have the same feeling.
I entered AS levels sitting on all A and A* GCSEs, with Oxbridge selecting me for talks about HE.
I entered A2 this year with: C,C,D and E in my AS levels. And now I'm suddenly struggling to get into Uni's that ask for BBB.
All my teachers know I'm a good student, just my academia doesn't show it.

Tbh, I've been rather depressed about this, although I don't show it. So I just keep my head down and try to improve, as hard as it is.


Sorry to hear dude. I screwed my first year at sixth form pretty badly as well, but after giving it a little more time I ended up with AAA at AS and BBB at A2 (with two of them being pretty close to A's).

Don't feel too depressed about it - although you may not make Oxbridge, it's definitely not over and you still stand a good chance of making it into an RG uni provided you can improve. With the experience you have from last year, things will be considerably easier when it comes to retakes and such like.
Original post by Crydamoure
Sorry to hear dude. I screwed my first year at sixth form pretty badly as well, but after giving it a little more time I ended up with AAA at AS and BBB at A2 (with two of them being pretty close to A's).

Don't feel too depressed about it - although you may not make Oxbridge, it's definitely not over and you still stand a good chance of making it into an RG uni provided you can improve. With the experience you have from last year, things will be considerably easier when it comes to retakes and such like.

How did you improve your grades? Did you resit year or resit a whole load of modules?
Although it sounds horrible, I'm glad that I'm not the only one to be going through this.

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