GPA Does Not Mean Everything

It was History Class, I was sitting in the front desk hoping to get something from what the teacher said. The teacher spoke in Turkish, the textbook was written in Turkish, and nearly all of my friends in class supposedly communicate in Turkish. I was totally clueless in the class. All I was doing were just sitting and doing more productive activity: browsing the internet. The lesson was useless to me and I didn’t learn anything. The exam was coming and I had no idea how to prepare for them. However, I had to get a good grade because I didn’t want to disgrace my parents by getting a bad grade.

I was thinking how could I get a good grade while I don’t understand all the class that had been through? was it still doable? Logically it is not, since what’s the point of attending the class if we could actually do the exam without attending the class. Well, all I could do that time was just to do my best. So I analyzed potential questions that might come out, find the related paragraph that might be the answer from the textbook, and memorize them letter by letter. Yes, letter by letter, because of my lack of Turkish vocabulary, sometimes I memorized without understanding the meaning of them. Eventually, I was the top 3 with the best grade in class.

It was Computer Network Class. In the first week before the class started, I said to myself, “I am going to understand all of the chapters, networking is cool bro, think the internet! it is used by everyone! I shall understand in and out”. But the class was boring, we attend the class everyday without much excitement. Come and go, the important thing was signing in the attendance list. I understood the lesson only roughly 10% from what the lecturer had explained.

The exam came, even though the exam was open book (means you can open any book or notes you have while doing the exam) , how can I do it well while I understand just a little bit? The textbook was horribly huge and I don’t have time to read them all. Suddenly, I heard from a colleague that the teacher usually took exam questions from the textbook.

Me : Ok then, how can I know which questions? All of the questions from chapter 1–10 are potentially going to come out, there are 200 questions.

Him : Bring your own textbook bro, it’s open book!

Me : Hey, I don’t have one, I just have it on my laptop.

Him : Print them all!

Me : Are you crazy? it’s hundreds of pages long! It’s gonna be expensive!

Him : Drop your money or drop your class?

Me : *speechless, going to a printing center*

I spent several bucks for some rumors. The crazy thing is, all he said was true and I beat the exam just by finding all the questions and answers within my weapon. I felt so pity when I saw my friends who didn’t know the rumor or didn’t want to sacrifice their money for this sacred weapon. in the other hand I felt so relieved. I got A. with a big smile.

It was Computer Philosophy Class, a class that every student in the department should not worry about. The lecturer was one of the oldest lecturer in the department. The class was not so exciting, I came to class regularly and listen to what the lecturer said, some students don’t though. I did all the assignment normally and nothing difficulies came by. I guess philosophical things weren’t so appealing for computer science students. I get just what’s necessary from the the lesson taught in the class.

The exam came, it was open book so students didn’t need to study much. Like usual, before the exam time is started, I went to printing center to print several materials that might be useful later. It turned out, the exam wasn’t so difficult and I didn’t worry much until the grade was announced.

I got C! A grade that I didn’t expect from this course. I was shocked then I figured out what might be the causes. I attended the class, did the assignment, and the exam was easy IMO. I asked the others who got A, which is quite many, they didn’t do anything special just did the exam writing the answer as much as possible. I began to doubt, yes I did the exam concisely and didn’t think much about the amount of answer I wrote. I thought that was the problem. Didn’t write answer more.

There are some patterns to get a good grade. You don’t necessarily need to be freaking genius to do so. In fact, a good grade is obtained by knowing the trick of answering the exam question effectively, plus how much effort you would like to sacrifice. And I know them very well.

To me, getting a good grade does make my parents proud. And that’s it, I don’t equalize a good grade with a success. In fact, to be successful, you don’t need a good grade, decent is enough, all you need is passion and ability to communicate with people. Unfortunately, those points sometime are missing in genius people. Thus, they usually work in academics.

However, after accomplishing my goal getting the best grade I ever could, I learnt something. “Don’t be the smartest guy in the class”.

It’s a deep realization that I wish I could elaborate further in the next post. But the point is, grade isn’t everything. It’s just a ticket to be an employer and nothing more.

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