We are worth more than our grades
A final exam diatribe.
I should be studying right now. I have three exams and two essays next week. To keep my GPA at the pre-law standard, I can’t afford less than an A on any of them — and yet, here I am at 10:20 PM on a Saturday night, writing this.
I am not alone in my fate. In the coming days, or weeks, or months, sixteen million students in the United States alone will take their final exams. In what can only be described as a whirlwind of coffee, anxiety, and flashcards, they will attempt to achieve the ever-unreachable standard of hireability. I doubt anyone reading this is surprised by our bi-annual flurry. Why would you be? In a world where one professor’s opinion can mean and has meant the difference between law school and last resort, what choice do we have but to sacrifice our wellbeing to Our Blessed Father: GPA.
Though that image edges on the melodramatic, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of these tests, and the toll that they take. In the past few years, we have seen the ever worsening job markets matched by a more anxious and mental unwell student population. A 2014 article published by the American Psychological Association put data behind the truth every student already knew — that more and more students view suicide as just as likely as graduation. Disappointingly, if tellingly, the article goes on to explore whether university counseling services are “cost effective.”
I suppose that speaks to something deeper about education in this country. More than a body of future academics or well-informed citizens, students are viewed as investments. Not only by universities and parents, but by ourselves. The graph below, taken from Emsi, shows a significant increase in STEM majors over time. Though some celebrate this news, it seems unlikely to me that students simply care less about English and Philosophy than they used to. Instead, in all probability, students are pursuing degrees they have no interest in, or degrees they were pushed into, all in the interest of survival. After all, as tuition rises, and student debt grows, what choice do we have but to drop our passions in hope of subsistence?
All of these stressors and sources of anxiety are concentrated into one week of hellish preparation. Libraries fill to the brim with drugged-up and exhausted young people — all in the name of keeping America’s cubicles well stocked, and the pool of skilled labor easily exploitable. And yet, as I type out that essential truth, I myself must feed that same capitalist horror and study for exams in the despicable aspiration of being sorted above my peers.
But to the students out there, I will leave you with this: If we are to be enslaved by such a spirit crushing, soul sucking, sleep depriving university monstrosity, then let us at least stand in the solidarity of decimation. Share your flash cards, buy each other coffee, and, please, remember that we all deserve to be happy. Not because of our grades or our accomplishments —but because we are human beings. And human beings deserve to be happy.
