We’ve all experienced the crushing disappointment of putting all your time into acing an assignment, only to get the class’s average grade. You feel relieved to have passed, but sigh over your unchanged GPA. What rubs in this feeling though is when someone gets annoyed at you because they got a worse mark. For some reason, anybody who got a mark better than them is not allowed to be upset by their own performance.
If I’m spending all week studying for a midterm and come out feeling like I pulled off an A, I should be free to feel disappointed at my unexpected B-.
Those of us who actually care about our grades have probably experienced this at some point in school. These grade-shaming dictators of emotion who can’t stand someone doing better than them need to stop, or at least study better. I don’t have to accept my mediocre grades as accomplishments just because they’re better than someone else’s underachieving standards. Sorry that I have higher aspirations in class than the bare minimum, I guess.
