By Priscilla Le
You are more than a grade,
An a, b, c, d
Whether you want to go down the rest of the alphabet
Makes no difference.
Sure, it’s discouraging
The letter taunts you
And you wonder why you ever placed so much emphasis
On it as a depiction of your worth.
Your GPA (not You’re GPA)
Attempts to define you
Inside the bitter confines of a numeric cage
But you don’t have to let it.
You control your life henceforth.
So you can let your grade hamper you now
And let it affect you
Believing it will be the be-all, end-all
But doing that would really be the nail in the coffin.
By defining yourself as a grade
You put yourself in a box
And forget the quality that makes us fundamentally human:
Growth
Take the grade
And consider it a challenge
Not of inevitable failure
But a second chance at success.
There’s a reason why we have semesters
Two halves of a whole.
Two chances to start afresh.
A second chance.
A second chance to succeed in your classes.
A second chance to earn the grade you desire.
A second chance to take the knowledge
You had from the first and grow.
Grow from your experience.
Make some changes.
Do yourself better.
And once and for all prove to yourself
That you are less of a grade
And more of the hard work and determination that got you there.
You are more than a grade.
