Column: Don't get caught up in grades

Almost every time I turn in a midterm, I feel a sense of relief. I don’t like talking about the test, I don’t want to hear the answers — I turned it in and that’s that.

I typically leave the classroom, walk to a coffee shop and watch Futurama instead of going through my notes looking for the answers from the test.

To protect my intellectual curiosity, I probably won't know what grade I got.

Public education is such a fascinating right we get to claim. The debt we owe to the people of North Carolina for heavily subsidizing our public education from kindergarten to senior year at UNC often goes unspoken.

It still blows my mind that this right, the ability to pursue our curiosities at a low cost, is denied to millions across the globe.

This privilege can be even harder to recognize during the stress of mid-semester testing. In the first class of my first year, my drama professor told me to never let “the spark of curiosity die out.”

He said that the stresses of school, tests and jobs can make students stop learning for the sake of learning.

From day one of college, I refused to let that happen. I don't really look at my grades.

I have been told that my way of coping to keep this light alive is strange to say the least.

The notion of chasing an arbitrary number or letter grade is unappealing and has led to me not reading or learning outside of class in the past.

We all know getting a bad grade can be discouraging and can lead to forever ignoring the partially failed (or totally failed) subject. This only furthers the notion of “sticking to what you're good at” instead of trying to become a more well-rounded student.

The potential inability to get a good grade should not stop you from trying a new subject, even if you might not excel immediately. 

If any of my professors are reading this, I do look at comments and feedback — that is how I know where I need to improve.

This system ensures that I am more concerned about the reasons behind whether I am doing well. To me, it is preferable to stressing over how many points I have or have not received.

If I know I did not study, then I assume the score is bad. Even if I did do well, I still prefer to assume I did not just so the habit doesn’t persist.

But if I worked hard, and thought I did well, I think staying positive is most important. Not to sound like a high school baseball coach, but if you can honestly say you gave it your all, what more can you do?

Of course, this is not a perfect system. Sometimes the grades are plastered right on the front page or the professors just tell you, but after not looking at them for a long time, I don’t care about it anymore.

And it doesn’t mean I live a stress-free lifestyle. I still feel the pressures to do well in school.

This simply gives me the ability to define “well” for myself.