Okay men: why didn’t you get better grades in school?

42 comments

1. Girls and video games

2. I just wasn’t interested in school and would rather mess around… turned out okay.

3. Because it doesn’t matter. There has never been a time in my life I’ve had to discuss my GPA with someone.

4. Because they did not go any higher.

5. I moved every couple of years. Was either ahead of everyone or behind. Took until college to even it out and crack down.

6. Bullied all thru school and got into drugs in high school to cope with my life.

7. What I called the effort to result ratio.

   I could put in almost zero effort and usually get a pretty good result – mostly As and Bs, a few Cs in subjects you really can’t fake. In my mind, it would’ve taken significantly more effort for not that much more of a reward. In hindsight, I wish I put in a little more effort to actually learn and enrich myself, but I was a kid. The pressures we put on kids can be pretty nuts.

8. Because I was too bored to work more than I did (which was actually already a lot)

9. Girls, hobbies, medication, public transportation

10. Laziness

11. Internet addiction and bad health. Still much above average, but not as good as I was aiming for.

12. I never cared for the subjects I was presented. Some classes I did well in but in others where I had zero interest I couldn’t do. I really liked college though because I was doing classes I liked for the most part. I ended up dropping out and began to run my grandpas towing business. Still here to this day that was like 7 years ago.

13. I used school as a play ground and once my fun stick got wet, I had a different priority.

14. Because I could consistently get 3.5-3.8 without much effort at all. When I finally put in some effort studying (grad school) I got a 4.0.

15. ADD. I am definitely not stupid at all, I was just being taught by a system that made absolutely zero accommdations for me.

16. I had zero motivation to. I played music and sports and just needed a C average to keep up my extracurricular activities.

    In hindsight my extracurriculars did far more for me than the school work.

17. Lazy

18. Didn’t feel like doing homework. Aced every test and project but felt the homework was stupid and a waste of time.

19. Top graduate, two masters magna cum laude and a PhD… it was difficult to be better than that.

20. I was doing OK until the the last two years. I just lost all interest.

21. I could push hard in school for what? To get into a “good” college? Or I could coast, get B’s and C’s, have fun with my friend and in my sports/clubs. And go to a decent college that is in a highly standardized field (chemistry) and be just fine. So I coasted and got B to C in highschool and C with a few D’s and an occasional B in college.

22. I was honestly pretty burnt out with all the homework on top of sports and other extracurriculars.

    For AP, IB and Honors students (at my school at least), the sheer amount of homework and studying alone drove half of us crazy. This is a rant for another thread, but it’s honestly gotten insane how much schoolwork kids have nowadays.

23. Lack of discipline

24. Because my home life was a nightmare and I was subsequently struggling from depression and panic attacks. I wanted to do good in school but my environment at home made it impossible to sleep or get homework done and because of that my school life suffered.

25. I did virtually no homework. I did okay in classes where your grade was more weighted toward tests and quizzes. But if assignments made up a significant portion of the final grade, then I probably got an F. I think I somehow made it through all of highschool and college having written maybe one paper.

26. school does a terrible job at getting you motivated to learn, in fact it does the opoosite

27. School didn’t teach me the things I needed to learn to pursue the career I wanted so I brought my own books to class and read what I needed to.

28. I finally got straight “A”s in sixth grade and didn’t get anything for it … other than “you’re supposed to get straight “A”s”.

    I stopped showing my report cards to my mom after that and forged “good grades” if needed. I had no educational support from my family, but had a ton of pressure to do “well”.

29. Hung out with the cool kids and study wasn’t a priority….lol. Plus laziness. Regret.

30. Bc I was in a fraternity, played rugby, ran triathlons, played water polo, volunteered, worked 10-40 hrs week.

    I pretty much got my bachelor’s degree w o studying.

    Masters degree was a lot easier time-wise bc I only had a job, a kid, a wife in grad school, and volunteering on the side.

    Edit: 2.7 in BS, 3.99 in MS

31. I did fine up until high school. Then I started smoking pot. That on top of both my mom and step dad getting cancer, and passing before I graduated didn’t really help either. I used weed and drugs to cover my pain. School could get fucked for all I cared for back then.

32. I didn’t want to be there and was more than happy to coast along. Also, I resented having to do homework so I never did any.

33. I stopped giving a shit after my father died.

34. Grew up in a broken home. Had no privacy to sit and read anything.

35. Too arrogant in thinking I was smart and not studying.

36. Had a 1.8 GPA end of Freshman year, 2.3 Sophmore year, 4.0 Junior year, and 4.5 Senior year. My teachers and the no child left behind drag off brown grey booklets were the most unstimulating things ever invented. It wasn’t till I signed up for AP classes on a fluke that I got actual lessons and soared.

37. In high school: Depression, disorganization, laziness, and Runescape, in that order.

    In college: I graduated magna cum laude, so it was hard to be much better than that. But I was working 36-48 hours a week and ruthlessly prioritized work according to diminishing returns. Sometimes that resulted in Bs.

38. Because I was busy drinking Jim Beam from a Coke bottle all day, smoking a bowl between classes, and almost always sleeping through classes. However, even with all that, I still got relatively good grades.

39. Gifted kid burnout basically. Adhd.

40. Undiagnosed adhd

41. Undiagnosed ADHD.

    Parents claimed that there were no warning signs, even told the psychiatrist this.

    Apparently, they seemed to have forgotten two teachers and a school counsellor separately ringing them to advise I get tested. They also seemed to forget shouting at me and saying “theres nothing wrong, youre just lazy” after one of the calls.

    Im doing okay academically now. Im 24, paid an arm and a leg to get an assessment myself. My parents still dont seem to care/ understand. Its been 5 months since I was diagnosed and im still struggling but its getting easier.

    Its hard trying to do this alone.

42. I got bored and I wasn’t getting help for my ADHD or OCD or passion based hyperfocuses… but it wouldn’t have mattered I think because I’m not a prescribed/Absolute learner who you can incentivise

    I’m an emergent/explorative/Intuition based learner and even I don’t get to choose what my brain latches onto this week

    Besides, school is a factory for productivity not novel interest that becomes competency and then specialised skill set

    Even then I had a lot of batshit family troubles and it was gonna be impossible with all that going on and how it was impacting me

    I was failed by child protective and family services etc long before the school system