I read this quote today that made me stop and chuckle. It was someone’s “shower thought” on Reddit:
When your gpa is too low, it’s an indicator that you’re not going to be good at what you want to do, but when your gpa is high, it “won’t mean anything in the real world.”
First off– too true. We often equate weird science to grades. I can count on one hand the points I lost (not letter grades– points) from the start of my undergrad to the completion of my PhD. In high school, I did a little bit worse than that because I was bad at calculus and not the best at AP chemistry. Still, I’ve never landed below 3.9 on any scale. I was told, repeatedly, that my grades wouldn’t mean anything in the real world. And that’s true, for the most part. I mean they did get me scholarships (not enough to avoid soul crushing debt, but still a not-unsignificant amount of aid). But honestly, no one cares that I was “that” guy.
I remember a moment distinctly from my senior year of high school that frustrated me to no end. I had to drive to Los Angeles for a college interview (two, actually– one at USC and one at Loyola Marymount). I couldn’t afford to fly, as back in the free-wheeling ’90s plane tickets any time around the day you wanted to fly were insanely expensive. So I drove.
That’s not what annoyed me. A cross-country senior year road trip wasn’t so bad. I did have to drive without sleep to get back in time (I only had so many days off), and it was that day I arrived back that was the frustrating moment.
We took a test that day called the ASVAB– the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. It was supposed to tell you what you were “good at.” I took that test having driven almost 40 hours straight with no rest, no shower, in the clothes I was wearing when I left Los Angeles.
When I got the results, their finding was “you can do whatever you want.”
First off– that’s not true.
I can’t, for example, be a gifted musician, or a skilled athlete.
But beyond that, this exam revealed the same thing that meetings with guidance counselors and mentors and teachers had my whole life: no one knew how to advise me as to what to do next.
For a long time, I pursued law school. I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I like the law, as an abstract, research thing. I would like to fight injustice. But I don’t want to be an ambulance chaser or a corporate lawyer. Morality and the law doesn’t match up that well.
I considered politics, but I’m too “real” for that. People would have a field day with my life and the things I’ve done.
I always loved telling stories. And I always loved technology. So I went with that.
I often think that given the once supposedly limitless potential I had, I didn’t do so well. I’m a cautionary tale. The ‘lil’ star that didn’t shine so bright.
But I realized, today, as I was thinking this over, that I have four titles now I never thought I’d have.
I’m a husband, the “head” of a household (I guess– I’m pretty sure we’re more of a two headed dragon). Still, I’m a homeowner-type guy who gets stuff done. I’m adulting pretty well.
I’m a doctor. I sometimes make people use my title just because I know I’m in a field where MOST people are doctors, but we’re a weird breed. Less than 1% of people have doctorates. Try the 1.5% of people that are Native American and do the weird math for just how Unicorny I am.
I’m also a consultant, which sounds more impressive than it is, but I mention it because it’s evidence of my value. People need the expertise only I have, and so they give me money (not enough– not nearly enough) just to have access to my expertise. Growing up a poor kid, I never thought someone would pay me just to know what I thought/knew.
And I’m the co-director of a varsity team that just won a National Championship, the first Division One Varsity Esports program with the first ever National Collegiate Championship in Overwatch.
I’m a person with an English degree that is a STEM professor.
I didn’t do so bad, after all.
I don’t think 17-year-old me would have ever picked this path when someone said “you can be whatever you want,” but I think, in spite of the troubled path to here, I am what I wanted to be. More or less.
Mostly more.