Every student looks upon the release of results with a mixed trepidation, one filled both with hope and the very real prospect of despair. Results, while often an impersonal letter grade, are linked to a semester of hard work, and more than a little frustration at times.
It is not often however that one can say that one is fully satisfied with the results one sees. There is always a module where one could have done better, some where one did better than expected.
This semester, I did mostly okay. But there was one module though that disappointed me greatly, because the letter grade I received signified a lack of recognition for all that I'd done, and more than a little partisanship on the part of the instructors.
I've never felt this way after seeing my grades. All the previous times, I was satisfied because to a certain extent, I knew I deserved them. But this was the first time I knew for certain that I did not deserve the grade I'd got, and that people who were less deserving had done better, and very markedly so. It was so ridiculous that the only reaction to my grade was shock and indignation, even amongst my peers.
I did not sleep all night after seeing that result. It was not so much the disappointment that came with it, but more of a feeling of betrayal that left me sick to the stomach and unable to feel any emotion. It was such an extreme wake up call that I did not even feel sleepy. It was the final nail in the coffin of a whole value and belief system that I'd grown up on, that the deserving get what they deserve.
When even that leaves you, there is really very little else that can motivate you to work hard for success, other than a stubborn faith that there must be something better than this, a light at the end of a never-ending tunnel. There is really little one can do about subjectivity in grading, even if the results have the effect of branding certain people as better than others. A single grade can mean so little, and yet so much.
When I was younger, it was all about working hard to do well. Now, I know that it is a lot more than that. With a bell curve system, it is often about who took the class with you. In a team effort, it is often about who knows how to showcase themselves better. In classes where the quality of one's work is subjective, it is often open to debate what grade one really deserves.
And in the ruthless competition against one's peers, someone is bound to get left behind. Those who are in front seldom stop to think about the person behind them, often someone who put in just as much effort, but just wasn't as lucky on the exam day.
I know one's happiness should not depend on grades, and really for me, it doesn't. But for that one module, it was not the grade that I was seeking. It was the recognition of how much I'd put in, which by the lack of an acknowledgment through the grade I received, was really a slap in the face. It is the kind of feeling where words will not suffice, and even now, for someone like me to say that I can't describe the feeling in words several hours later is really a reflection of what I feel about it.
I find it really ridiculous that now I find that I have to appeal for what should belong to me, as though the instructors could not see it fit to give me the grade I deserved in the first place. I do not say this lightly, because at times I did feel like I was carrying the whole team. But of course when I have to say it like this, it becomes an exercise in hubris, as though all I had to stake a claim to a grade that should have been mine is a bruised ego. And its not even ego that motivates me. It's just an acknowledgment that my efforts and sacrifices were appreciated.
Really, it is not so much the fact that I did not get the grade that stings, it's the fact that people who did a lot less did, because it really makes you wonder if you could have done anything about it, at all. It also highlights to me that maybe, studying in this school is really a farce, like I'd always suspected.
I guess I had better start getting used to that feeling. In the workplace, I'm going to see many more undeserving people get promoted ahead of me because they know how to carry balls.
It makes for a very jaded and cynical person. Sometimes I forget that I'm just 24. I've spent a whole life fighting, thinking that life should be fair and reward those who are willing to put in the sacrifices. But life doesn't owe me anything, and it never will.