Are Grades Hurting Your Education?

As an undergraduate STEM student, I am all too familiar with the feeling of dread that accompanies the return of graded exams. The pit in your stomach grows as you peek at the red markings, afraid of what might be in store. The anxiety surrounding graded school work can be overwhelming and paralyzing, especially when grades are seen as the currency of academic success. From medical schools and graduate schools to parents and peers, the leading discourse is that maintaining a high GPA is imperative. To many, a motivated, successful student is dependent upon the promised reward of a high grade. But are grades actually helping us learn?

Like chasing the carrot at the end of the stick, grades act as external sources of motivation, rewards for desired academic behavior. But what happens when the rabbit finally gets the carrot? As symbols of achievement, grades only motivate students to reach a target and then give up. How many of us have crammed for a biochemistry exam the night before, gotten the A, and promptly forgotten everything we learned, never to revisit it again. In this way, grades do not promote the pursuit of complex knowledge, rather they incentivize controlled and predictable behavior.

With the control of externally determined grades comes the fear of failure. Instead of walking into an exam excited to show our knowledge and tackle the challenge, we often approach evaluations with a sense of fear. This avoidance of potential failure stifles creativity and exploration. For instance, I love calculus- I think its the only tolerable form of mathematics and I genuinely love getting my derivative on. However, my major only requires that I take Calculus I and I found myself eschewing Calculus II for the sole reason that it could lower my GPA. It is so ingrained in our psyches that grades are the end all be all of our education that they influence our choice of classes, majors, and even career paths. I have comforted many a friend as they lament that they will never get into medical school or graduate school if their grades stay the same, and have watched as some have completely changed their majors.

If so much societal importance is placed on good grades, they must be essential, right? While grades may be integral to the capitalist fabric of our nation, aiding in the stratification and hierarchical categorization of knowledge, they can hinder learning and be detrimental to the mental health of students. And all they really prove in the end, as that a student can conform to external expectations and apply themselves just enough to reach an arbitrary standard of superficial knowledge. Im sure that many admissions staff, employers, lab directors, and internship coordinators have been faced with a straight A student who is not in the least bit capable in their field, despite having achieved the gold standard of academic merit.

If grades are increasing anxiety and decreasing the intrinsic motivation to learn, how can we as students remain sane in the current educational system? I do not foresee any wide scale changes to the nations grading system in our near future, but we can address our relationships with grades. Students, professors, and parents both overtly and covertly perpetuate the idea that a student’s self-worth is reliant on their GPA. In order to build a healthier relationship with grades, we can all recognize that they do not necessarily reflect the efforts or merit of the individual, nor will they determine the success or happiness of that person’s life post-graduation. I think that the mental, social, and academic effects of the letter grading system is a significant blindspot in higher education that needs to be addressed; when students enter the “real world” their merit will no longer be evaluated with a single letter. Students must have an internal locus of motivation, be willing to face failure, and pursue a deep and complex understanding of topics if they are to weather the competition of the working world.