What I want to change about Uni.

I would love to change Uni’s academic culture. By that, I mean how we talk about and handle grades, tests, presentations, etc. I think as a senior applying to college I see very often this unhealthy view of how we need to prepare and act around academics. It’s no secret that Uni students are stressed but, as Dr. Majerus pointed out to our utopias and dystopias class, there is healthy stress and unhealthy stress. Healthy stress is the stuff that motivates us and makes us do our best, the butterflies in our stomach before a game or performance that help us work hard. Unhealthy stress is the stuff that makes us lose sleep at night, set unrealistic goals, and overall leave us unhappy. I see a lot of the latter here. At Uni there has always been a big element of comparing grades, you knew who were the smart kids in your grade for each subject since subbie year and they would seem as if they were on another, unattainable level. Even in the application process to get into Uni, among the people I knew you were pretty much defined by your SSAT score, even though essays were heavily taken into account, all that mattered to the other kids was the score. Don’t get me wrong I am happy where I am happy at Uni, but I have never once felt like the smartest person in the room (not that it matters or can truly be quantified), I’ve honestly never felt in the top 10 even. And I know I am not the only one to feel this way. I believe there is validity to the side of the argument that says you need people better than you to push you, however, I believe that this needs to be complemented with a culture that promotes you to believe you can do what you want. I never felt that if I studied all night I would be as smart as someone else, I always felt like I was just born more stupid.


I think this also ties into the conversation about what being “smart” even means. I don’t think someone's level of intelligence solely relies on test scores or grades, despite what we seem to hear everywhere. When you are considering a college the first thing you look into is average acceptance rate depending on GPA and SAT/ACT scores even though we have to write essays we sort of get the notion that unless you have a lot going for you if your numbers aren’t high enough you’re not going to get in. I personally believe the largest indicator of intelligence is critical thinking but we can save that for another blog post. I think throughout the years at Uni I have noticed a change there is less direct asking about grades and scores yet there is still a large percent of the student body who compares themselves. This is a dangerous mentality, often it doesn't prepare you for inevitable failure in life. If you define yourself by the number of A’s you have you are setting yourself up for hurt. There is an element of pushing yourself to your best but at what cost.





As much as I had to complain about something without trying to provide a solution, I am really not sure what to do about this. In my Utopias and Dystopias English class last year we talked extensively and voted on the idea of not using grades and just going to a pass or fail system. Although this sounded cool when everyone learned it wouldn’t positively affect our GPA’s we voted against that and decided to remain with the usual grading system. Even if Uni was to stop using grades I am not sure that would help. Once we apply to college we would need to prove ourselves to that school through more tests and even more pressure on those tests. I guess this indicates that this issue is way beyond Uni. Even if we didn’t have grades teachers would still have to mark if we made an error and I think you would still find us comparing ourselves in some other way. There definitely does need to be less emphasis on defining yourself by your grades. Feel free to leave any suggestions in the comments.