Academic Pressure vs. A Student’s Individual Success
Imagine: It’s the day that you hear the results of a final exam in a high school honors class. You look around, watching as students rub their sweaty palms with jittery knees. They receive their papers back and immediately scatter to others’ desks to compare. Groans of failure over their B- over their peer’s A- fill the room.
This here, is the typical image depicted in an honors classroom, recalled by a now virtual high school student in her senior year.
When one asks an honors student about their day, the student is quick to recall the stress surrounding that one assignment in their chemistry class, the grade which falls slightly short of the majority within their class, rather than recalling other aspects of their daily lives. This constant pressure to do better than before rather than reflecting on the successes one has achieved is a typical attitude within the honors classroom. This attitude is constantly reinforced by competition between peers in class standing, the reminder that one won’t achieve their dream college without hard work academically, and the consistent persistence in media propaganda that is the American Dream: the idea that one will achieve success with constant output, but is this really the case?
As my senior year has progressed, beginning as a virtual year and ending as such, the startling realization that solely the pursuit of academics does not determine success in adulthood has been an absolute mindfuck.
This realization came during one long night in January, in which my procrastination during a time of senioritis resulted in me pulling a long all-nighter to achieve the grades of which I wanted, aiming for a 4.0 for my high school transcripts. It then dawned on me that the workload of a high school student should not cause unhealthy sleeping habits, but rather a passion to learn, an excitement in curiosity.
These passions are what leads one to determine their career path for the rest of their lives. But instead, by treading through large workloads reinforced by a pressure to do well academically, we regress in our passions and separate ourselves from school life and what we enjoy. The privilege that is education becomes a judgement in our capabilities and not an identifier in what we enjoy.
More recently in my last semester of high school, I was admitted into my dream college for the fall semester. I was the only one in my school admitted to this college despite my academic statistics being generally lower than others who also applied to this same college. This moment, while joyous for myself, made me feel a sense of disappointment in my acceptance over others. Did I truly deserve this acceptance when I wasn’t as academically perfect as others? How did I achieve this when I wasn’t even in the top 3%? But, let’s be real for a second. A student’s excellence and capabilities should never be strictly determined by their academic output. From my observation in my academic statistics versus others’, it has become clear to me that maybe the idea that academic excellence = achieving the American Dream isn’t fully what it is made out to be. My passions in what I have done in my high school career are in my community service and leadership, not in the organic compounds I made a VSEPR shape for in a test.
Let’s also not forget the negative effects on mental health which academic pressure carries. I have not met one honors student that didn’t feel depressed as a result of a “failing grade” in their eyes, which in reality was not lower than a C average.
When discussing their disappointment, they would often be fearful of how their parents would view their “failing grade,” how ivy league colleges would reject them as a result of this test which dropped their grade temporarily. How Student A would achieve a spot in a scholarship over them since Student A is so much better. This constant comparison in relation to the fear of an unsuccessful future results in a loss of motivation, despite academics being only a portion of one’s life, not their identity. The realization that the pressure that the education system places on academics is bullshit is the most relieving understanding to an honors student, but one that has to crawl through a cloud of depression to be realized.
While the pressure that academics is the only factor which determines your future success will most likely be carried over into future years, either by administration or parental means, I can only hope that students will achieve the realization that these statistics do not define one’s capabilities soon. I can only hope that with the rise in mental health awareness that, in time, schools will adapt a more well-rounded approach of educating in terms of physical and mental health as well academics as a means of a successful future.