4 Important Reasons Why Grades Don’t Matter

Grades are, without a doubt, the most stressful part of the college experience. Am I going to pass this class? Is a C going to be good enough? Will I get a job with my low gpa? There is this constant pressure to get perfect grades and it can be very damaging to one’s self confidence and emotional security when grades don’t turn out as planned. Here are 4 reasons why you should just take a deep breath and let go of all that stress.

1. Experience is the key

Employers like to see good grades, but they’d rather see experiences you had and the skills you learned from those experiences. It is much more important to focus on becoming involved in extracurricular activities, including academic and recreational focused clubs. These kinds of experiences show that you developed crucial skills by getting directly involved in different projects. Another reason actual life experiences are more important is because a real job is completely different than a classroom environment. Activities outside of the classroom relate more closely to an actual work environment where you have to use hands on skills to complete a task rather than just reading about chemical bond structure and remembering the name of a bone in your pelvis.

2. Networking

Sometimes the best way to land a job is by talking to people and building connections to people that can recommend you for a job. Even if you have perfect grades and great experience, the job could automatically go to someone with mediocre grades just because they knew someone.

3. Your happiness comes first

You’re going to school to build a better life for yourself and maybe for your family too. Society is telling you that you need to get good grades, graduate, and find a great job in order to feel happy in life. But what if you are hurting yourself too much trying to reach these goals? You can’t build a great life on a broken foundation. Focus on your happiness right now because if you aren’t happy now chances are you won’t be happy later either. So stop beating yourself up over some poor grades and let yourself have a life you love outside of school.

4. There’s much more important things

Years from now you’re going to barely think about what grades you got in college and how many hours you spent on that research paper. The things you will remember are the friends you made, the time you spent having fun, and the great experiences you made with your loved ones. If you consider the bigger picture of your life, grades are so insignificant that it seems silly that they cause so much trauma.