Ruminating on results

I just looked at my grades for last semester. I take my grades super seriously. Well, actually, I guess I took my grades super seriously because all my results are in now and my GPA isn’t going to change anymore.

I’ve found I have to be careful not to attach my self worth to my results. Getting a bad grade does not invalidate my existence, which seems obvious when I say it that way, but it hasn’t always felt that way. That being said, I do think it was healthy for me to see grades as important when the focus was to push myself to achieve the best I possibly could. My first semester at university did not go very well. It probably reflected the effort I was putting into my subjects, but it still knocked my self esteem down for a few weeks.

I ended up turning that bad first semester into a positive, using those bad grades as a focal point, a motivation to improve, and a reminder to put effort in. My average marks for each year have gone up, and my GPA has come up with it. This made me feel like I was doing better and better at being a uni student.

My GPA has been such a big focus of my effort and attention over the last four years, it’s consumed a good deal of my thinking and been a number one priority. I took it to the level of calculating the grades I would need in each subject, and the effect on my overall grade.

Constant improvement has been such a focus for me. Lifting my GPA as high as I can. Now, there is no more improvement. Now it’s all done. I calculate my GPA and know that it is going to sit there forever. It makes me feel strange. I’m left just kind of wondering about what to turn my attention to next, what the next thing is to strive for now that the results are in.

I’m left a little bit infuriated because, in one of my subjects for last semester, I am 0.175 marks away from the next grade band. I also find some of my marks don’t seem to reflect what I thought the quality of my work was, which is also frustrating. A final frustration is the fact that, if my first semester had not gone so poorly, I would have a significantly better overall result, and I would be recognised for it by the University.

Looking at my transcript I think about all the other things that could have been. If the marker had been in a better mood, if I’d gotten one more multiple choice question right.

What’s done is done.

These are my results for my subjects and I just have to make the most of the bad grades, and celebrate the good ones.