This blog is dedicated to anyone who has ever been afraid to talk about what matters to them. No one should tell you that what you have to say is unimportant. If it matters to you, it matters period.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Why We'd Feel Better Without GPAs
For most of my life, I didn't know what my grade point average or class rank were. We didn't have GPAs or class rank until until high school, and they weren't included on our high school report cards. I never checked my GPA or class rank until I needed them to apply to college. Things were different in college: every time grade came out, your GPA and rank were also included. I didn't want to see either of these things because they made me feel really bad. I got some bad grades during my first year at college, but I did well after that. If I had only seen my new grades in the following years, I would have felt proud that I had improved so much, but because my GPA reflected my bad grades from the first year, I always felt like I wasn't doing well. I always felt like I needed to do better to recover from my first year, but looking at my grades alone, I had already recovered. And even though I don't care how well my grades compare to my classmates', seeing my class rank made me feel like I was doing really poorly in school, even though I was getting good grades by my own standards. I spent my entire time at college feeling like I wasn't doing well when I actually was doing well - all because I didn't have the option to see my grades without viewing my GPA and class rank. I think schools need to give us that option to only see what we want to see, because some of us just want to feel good.
Labels:
college,
feeling good,
gpa,
grades,
school
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Not Everyone Wants Balance
I have never been interested in living a balanced life. Yet a lot of people I've met don't believe me when I say this; they can't let go of the notion that everyone must want balance.
Here's an example that comes up a lot. Let's say there are three activities that a person can spend their time on: A, B, and C. So I decide to devote most of my time to thing A, but also do a little of B and C. People try to convince me that I want to do more of B and C. They'll tell me that one day I'll look back and regret that I didn't do more of B and C. But I can usually predict what I will regret, and I know that if anything, I will look back and regret that I spent any time at all on B and C, that I didn't devote all of my time and energy to thing A.
"But you're already doing so much of A!" they'll argue.
"But it is only so much," I'll try to explain. "It's not everything. It's not all of A that I could be doing." And did it ever occur to anyone that if I wanted to do more of B and C, I would? Why would I spend so much time on A if I had any interest in living a balanced life?
Here's an example that comes up a lot. Let's say there are three activities that a person can spend their time on: A, B, and C. So I decide to devote most of my time to thing A, but also do a little of B and C. People try to convince me that I want to do more of B and C. They'll tell me that one day I'll look back and regret that I didn't do more of B and C. But I can usually predict what I will regret, and I know that if anything, I will look back and regret that I spent any time at all on B and C, that I didn't devote all of my time and energy to thing A.
"But you're already doing so much of A!" they'll argue.
"But it is only so much," I'll try to explain. "It's not everything. It's not all of A that I could be doing." And did it ever occur to anyone that if I wanted to do more of B and C, I would? Why would I spend so much time on A if I had any interest in living a balanced life?
Labels:
being yourself,
differences,
personal,
social trends
How College Students Dress
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College Casual |
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College "I care how I look" |
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Shirt over tank top (college style) |
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Tank top over shirt (my style) |
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My Style |
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My Style |
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My Style |
Labels:
being yourself,
clothes,
college,
differences,
judgment,
peer pressure,
school,
style
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