I Am Told Grades Don't Matter

Oh, and by the way, I did just fine. Actually, I did great.

One of the first conversations that the faculty have with new PhD students is the conversation about grades. Specifically, the fact that grades don't matter. This program is about the learning process, not about a number on a scale of 1 to 4. With that said, the faculty also remind us that just because grades don't matter does not mean that we can have a subpar performance. Also, for someone like me who has a departmental assistantship, I need to have a certain grade-point average to maintain my funding. This dual kind of conversation happens a lot in the program. For example, "You don't need to be worrying about comps right now" and then the next 30 minutes are spent discussing comps. This happened to me twice already. So, the semester is officially OFFICIALLY over, because grades are out now. Additionally, the residual anxiety I have been experiencing the last few days can now be put to rest. During the semester I have told myself and my cohort mates, "Grades don't matter!" but in reality I silently fret and wring my hands. This last week, I woke up almost every night at 2am feeling guilty about my overall performance, and hoping that my quant professor doesn't think poorly of me because I bombed the final. Or that I probably could have done just a little more on my final paper for my Prosem class. At 2 in the morning I am trying to remind myself, "Grades don't matter!" and yes, I have learned! I have learned so much! However, sometimes that hardest thing to learn is that learning in itself is the aim here. And after I lull myself back to sleep I remind myself that I certainly am achieving this aim.