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CLMN | Yay, graduated cum laude! Now, let’s face reality...

08/05/2017

Throughout our student lives we have been programmed that academic achievements are all that matters, and that high grades and flashy scholarly projects will land us on the job of our dreams.

This rationale has even shaped the personalities of many, to the point that they even gain pride out of their ‘achievements’, while the rest with average or low marks may even see themselves as hopeless. For me, this is just a problem of underestimation and overestimation. You are not too good, but also, you are not as bad as you may think.

It is true, the academic and professional fields are framed in a constant race in which high grades on your diploma may seem useful when it comes to competing for a job or a higher position.

Marks are relative, and not objective mainly because they fail to fully assess if a person is truly brilliant or not. What I am trying to tell you, is that you must aim to have good grades and work with passion to get them, but you shouldn’t base the success of your career on them. Instead, look beyond, assess your true strengths and your opportunity areas and work on them. I - and thousands of recruiters with me - will tell you that grades are overlooked when a candidate with the correct attitude and equipped with a knack for people, rocks at an interview.

George W. Bush once told to a group of graduates “To those who graduated with honors: well done! To those who are graduating with a C, I can tell you that you can be a president too”. He was one of those Cs.

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