“I can’t do that! I have a 4.0!” It wasn’t sinking in through his ear pelt: 4.0 was the DEFINITION of “college Felicia.” Didn’t he get it?!
He said, with an earnest comb-over and a voice way too calm for the situation, “You know the best thing that could happen? Get a B in this class. Life would be so much easier for you after that. It’s not a big deal.”
Old Felicia, looking back on young Felicia, nods wisely. She says to herself, “That’s the best advice I’ve ever heard. Why do I care about my GPA so much? Why do I have to be the best at everything? Does it really matter if I have ONE B?”
But young perky-tits Felicia can’t hear her thirtysomething, wrinkled self. She is determined to get an A, no matter what Dr. Clear-face said. She will break herself doing it, oh yes she will! Muhahahahah . . . hah.
Ha!
I went to every single office hour for Dr. Cleary for the rest of the semester. I went to OTHER professors’ office hours and pretended to be in their classes to get extra help. I went to one of my mentor professors, Dr. Davis, who had nothing to do with Group Theory at all, but I thought she might be able to get Dr. Cleary to go easy on me. All she said was, “He’s right. Get a B, it will be fine.” Psh. I did NOT get her a Presidents’ Day gift that year.
I took over the physics lounge at the math building for the rest of the summer to study. I checked out dozens of textbooks. I studied math as hard as I ever did the violin, six, eight hours a day. When I hit a wall studying alone, I looked around the classroom and recruited a study partner, a guy named Jesse, at random. “YOU! I’m cute. You got a thirty-eight on the test. Get in here, we’re studying all summer!”
Jesse was a gawky but loveable guy with a huge Adam’s apple and feet the size of small canoes, and was my constant companion in my quest to master this devil subject. He was at my side all summer, whether he liked it or not, eating frozen burritos for every meal and drinking fifteen cups of coffee a day. Every step of the way. Except when he left for a week because of stupid KIDNEY STONES. What a slacker.
When the final test came around, I’d soaked myself in so much Group Theory that I was seeing numbers fly all over peoples’ faces, like in Good Will Hunting or that Russell Crowe movie where he was super smart and then went crazy for an Oscar. I was ready. There were five questions on the test, and as I scanned the final, I saw that I knew every one of them by heart. I looked up, smiled a “Screw you, Dr. Cleary!” smile aimed at the area on his skull where his comb-over met his ear hair, and got to work.
When I got the test back the following week, it had a “100” at the top in red marker.
And a frowny face next to the number.
Yes, a FROWNY FACE. My teacher wanted me to get a B! But I didn’t give him the satisfaction. I spent a summer of my life dedicated to something I’d never use again. I showed him!
One semester later I did, indeed, graduate with a 4.0. I had done it. And after that, my GPA did . . .
Nothing. I never planned on going to graduate school. I wasn’t applying for jobs that used grades as a measurement. I didn’t need that GPA for any single reason other than to SAY I had it and impress people.
I could turn this into an argument for “Let’s reward a high GPA after college in LIFE! Can we get priority seating on Southwest? A free monthly refill at Starbucks? SOMETHING to make four years of my life chasing this arbitrary number WORTH it?!” (Great idea. Never gonna happen.) Or I could argue that if I’d been easier on myself and gotten 10 percent worse grades I could have had 50 percent more friendships and fun.
If someone’s takeaway from this story is “Felicia Day said don’t study!,” I’ll punch you in the face. But I AM saying don’t chase perfection for perfection’s sake, or for anyone else’s sake at all. If you strive for something, make sure it’s for the right reasons. And if you fail, that will be a better lesson for you than any success you’ll ever have. Because you learn a lot from screwing up.
Being perfect . . . not so much.
Oh, and make sure if you’re working hard at something it’s in a subject you ACTUALLY want to remember something about ten years later. Because I’m reading the rest of this Wikipedia entry, and this Group Theory stuff is INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
[?Dating? Nah.?]