A look back at ' A look back at some things in hindsight, moving from fact to philosophy'

Well, my last post got some comments and I appreciate the fact the both of our 2 readers care enough to comment, thanks guys keep coming back, but I would like to comment on their comments and since there isn’t a place for that I suppose I’ll just repost what they said.


Comments will be in courier and they will be small and my responces that will be in times and will be red.

Beth said...
Excellent post, Adam, bravo encore I say

Thanks Beth your stuff is good too.


On to this guy

smartchild435 said...

I must disagree with you. Grades do mean something, they are a way of measuring success, they can be used to track one's improvement, they can be used to measure over a long period of time a student’s achievement. They tell you if someone can succeed in a class. Grades are a good measuring stick.

Way to go, you’ve completely missed the point. You need to ask yourself what you are using said measuring stick on and if that really matters, I seem to think that it doesn’t

The 'race for the highest score' as you call it, is a way of challenging another to be better. I don't have anything to work for without competition from someone else, even if it's not from Gross, there's a kid over at say Westside who is also trying to get into MIT, and I need to beat him out.

So it is. I will admit that when I heard that a certain someone had a better grade than me in pre-calc it was a wake up call and I ended up with high marks. But the fact that I ended up with a better grade then said person offers me no gratitude but the fact that they were doing better then me at that one point made me realize that I was capable of better.

Competition does NOT create a bad atmosphere; it creates an atmosphere of higher learning, of challenging each other to go above and beyond, and of maximizing everyone's potential.

You didn’t really offer any supporting arguments for that statement.

Also, if you think that competition is going to die out after school, no it won't. It will intensify. People will be trying to move up the career ladder and beat you out. It's only going to get harder, competition for grades definitely helps prepare you for the future.

Sure, I suppose that depends on what field you get into and your individual attitude. It still comes down to this: if you want to do better then you will. If you want to do something great I hope you have the motivation and the desire for your own purposes.

I think you're misinterpreting the reason most people want to know your grades. It's not to make a claim that they're better than you, it's to help everyone better themselves.

You contradicted your whole, already weak, argument with this conclusion. If I am supposed to compete in order to be better, like you said, why then should I ever want to make others better by sharing my grade, like you just clamed it would?

Mike said...
Grades don't matter.

There, I said it. All your high school grades do is somewhat help you with college. But even then, they aren't that big of a deal. If you're going in-state, you just need to get above average grades to have almost a full ride. If you're going out of state, you're fucked...hell, you all know what kind of grades I got, and they were only good enough to get me enough money from ISU to pay for about $8,000 a year of about $23,000 a year (tuition + room and board). As for ROTC, again, my grades combined with everything else were only good enough to get me a three year scholarship, not a four year.

And both of those scholarships are dependent on me retaining good grades in college...and your college grades are only important for getting your first job out of college, and really, only then if you are in a somewhat technical field. In anything else, getting internships and hands on experience is FAR more important than getting exceptional grades.

Now, all this isn't to say that you shouldn't do well in school. You should, but only because you should WANT to do your best.

Regardless, Adam is totally right in that some people let grades become their sole source of happiness. It's retarded. Grades should be the least of your worries...look, I've got a 2.5 GPA my first semester, and quite honestly, its not that big of a deal. Yeah, I need to improve for next semester, but I'm not overly concerned.

And that's how it should be. If you make competition with other people your sole source of happiness, you will never be truly happy.


I don’t even need to comment, he comprehended what I wrote. Grades don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Thanks for the extra supporting arguments about your tuition and such. He’s right, I have the best grades that I can get and yet it’s still not enough to get me into my dream college. What have I worked for. But at least I’m more intelligent and that, sometimes, doesn’t have anything to do with grades.

smartchild435 said...

Woa I didnt say it's the sole purpose of happiness... that honor is reserved for music! But no, I think some good healthy competition is good for an environment, and that I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing your grades. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Once again you missed the point. While it depends on the individual whether competition helps or not, that wasn’t the point. The point is that you shouldn’t get your panties in a bunch over your grades. If you have the drive to succeed in life, to do something great, then you will. You don’t need a degree from MIT to be a genius, and you don’t need to be a genius to impact the world.

Thanks again for commenting. I hope this doesn’t discourage others from commenting I just felt that there was enough here to say something.


Fair, Balanced, and Second,
Adam