The Ice Queen of My Brain

Science (And Grades. Mostly Grades)

Hey, everyone! I hope you've all been having a great summer. 

I know I've been rather inactive lately, and I just wanted all of you to know that the reason I may not respond to your comments and messages as quickly as I once did and my graphic shop is now closed isn't that I no longer care about you: my parents have recently placed severe restrictions on my Wattpad time. 

No, Wattpad has not been negatively affecting my grades or my health. I'm doing perfectly fine- there are just many other things that I need to be putting my efforts into at this point in my life. 

Thank you all so much for being patient with me, and continuing to follow up on my profile and my stories. It means the world to me, as it's the primary reassurance I get that my writing might actually be worth something. 

Now, enough about me, and on to my summer/back to school post!

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There's no doubt about it: I love science and everything it entails. I've wanted to be a scientist- a goal that's been whittled down to geneticist over the years- since long before I was old enough to start seriously studying the subject. Now, there are days (after an easy daily grade is put into the grade book, boosting everyone's averages in the class) that I'm joined by many. Yet, there are many more days (after an impossible test that sends many promising, young GPA's careening into the abyss of utter and total failure) on which I'm completely alone. Days on which rants about terrible science teachers are plastered all over whiteboards and with even greater fervor on the Internet, spreading hatred of the subject to underclassmen and filling their minds with negativity before they even experience the class.

This tells me one thing, and that thing has nothing to do with what anyone thinks of science: at least in the report card-obsessed *insert my grade level, which you're not finding out* class of my GPA-worshiping school, one's opinion of a particular subject depends solely upon one's current average in said subject, with no consideration of personal interest in the field. Of course, this is a HUGE generalization, but it's still loosely applicable.

Now, I know that those of you who know how I mourn 96.4's will call me a hypocrite for giving the typical, trite "grades don't really matter in life" speech. Before you do, let me clarify: that's NOT the speech I'm giving. I'm not telling you not to care about your grades, or that I don't care about my grades (because trust me, I do). I'm just telling you not to let your level of mastery of the tiny fraction of basic knowledge you learn in school affect your opinion of an unimaginably vast field of learning that's too expansive for any of us to truly fathom. 

Here's an anecdote (look at me, throwing in some legitimate persuasive devices): so, we have a girl, let's call her Sophie. She's in high school, she loves biology, and she's great at it. However, bad luck strikes, as it often does, and she ends up with the worst possible teacher for that class. He seems to hate her for absolutely no reason, and gives her failing grades with no explanation. One fine day, Sophie takes a look at her report card, and decides, with the nice, high standards she holds herself to, that her science grade is unacceptable: following the mindset I see so often, she now decides to hate Biology. She ingrains that feeling in herself so firmly, refusing to give the subject another chance, that she carries it with her through high school and college. Instead of becoming a surgeon and saving dozens of lives, she will now grow up to be a mediocre employee in a field she isn't truly passionate about (because let's face it, you can't truly be great at something you don't enjoy doing.) The (unfortunate) end. 

Moral of the story? Unless you want to be like Sophie, end up doing something you don't enjoy for the rest of your life, and never reach your full potential, my best advice to those of you who are still in school is to keep an open mind going into next fall. It's going to be a new school year, with new teachers and new course material, and chances are, there's going to be something about it you don't like. That's only natural- humans are naturally opinionated beings (some of us more so than others), and not all of those opinions are going to be positive. 

Sometimes, (24/7 if you're me) your grades will leave you feeling stressed, out of control, or even wronged. It's okay to be angry at your partner for the group project or at your teacher, as long as you're trying not to hold a permanent grudge. Just don't let one unsatisfactory grade on one test in one freshman biology course get you hating all science forever. If I did that, I'd have been hating every subject before I got to the sixth grade.