5 benefits of not being the "top" student

For all of my life I have had to work hard for my grades. School has felt like a battlefield. I am constantly fighting to stay on top of things. I work hard and I don't always see the results that I would like. I also have friends and acquaintances that don't have to work nearly as hard. School came naturally to them and they seemed to always do better than me and to spend half the time that I spent working on it. I used to be frustrated by this, but just recently as I was pondering on this topic, I realized that there have been some major benefits from not being the "top" student.  

1. I know how to learn. Because I have had to work hard for nearly every good grade that I got it wasn't a shock to come to college and actually have to work hard at learning. Yes, I did have some ridiculously easy classes in high school, but the honors and AP classes I took were hard for me. I had to spend hours studying to get the concepts down. It wasn't hard for me to transition into college life that requires a lot more studying than most are used to. This also kept me from getting that awful freshman GPA that everyone talks about. 
2. I'm okay with asking for help. I've noticed that because I had accepted the fact that I need help, it doesn't bother me, or hurt my pride to go talk to the professor or TA and get the help that I need. This has been a huge blessing as I have gone throughout my schooling. I have been able to make connections and really learn things. Not just memorize them for a test, but I have learned how to make the knowledge become apart of me and apply it into my life. I have talked with a lot of people that have never been into a TA lab in their life... totally a foreign concept to me. I live in those labs. This also translates into other aspects of my life. I have found that it has helped me learn to ask for help when I need it in more things than just school and many people don't know how to do that because they have never had to. 
3. It's brought me greater perspective. So often school is all about our grades. I have had many instances where I have studied and mastered a topic, but because tests are hard for me I have still done poorly. You may think that I really didn't have it mastered, but in one instance I was literally teaching the whole lab and then still did worse than most there. Testing is just not my thing. This has forced me to remember what I believe knowledge is for. Knowledge is one of the few things that we can take with us after we die, but it's so much more. It's something that gives us depth and understanding of the world. Knowledge gives us the ability to add to a conversation intelligently. Knowledge is what helps us reach our potential. Knowledge allows us to be more understanding of others. There have been many times as I look at my test score that I have to remind myself that there is so much more to life and school than a grade.
4. It has helped me have empathy. When people come to me feeling frustrated about school and feeling like they will never be good enough, I know how they feel. We all experience things differently, but I can understand, to some degree, where they are coming from. I get what it is like to feel hopeless. I get what it is like to feel like you'll never be smart enough. I get it. This is one of those things that it's just not very fun to talk about with someone who has school smarts. It just makes you feel even more dumb. It's good to talk with someone you love and respect but struggles as well. I know it helped me. 
5. I know where true knowledge comes from. Struggling with school has helped me realize that true knowledge comes from God. I believe that God cares about all aspects of our lives, but sometimes He allows us to not do as well as we would like because the lessons from "failing" are greater than the lessons from "succeeding." There have been times that the "failing", or not doing as well as I would like, have taught me significant lessons that have blessed my life and have changed me forever. I would take the things I have learned from those times over good grades every time. I realize that God has a plan for me. He knows the things I need to learn and He will allow me to experience the "failures" in order for me to learn the lessons I need. He is the source of true knowledge. This also helped me realize that whenever I was able to master a concept that this was from God. It wasn't because I'm so smart, but because He was blessing me. It's a lot easier to be humble, when you don't always get the grade you want. 

All of this being said, I don't think I am superior to people who have the gift of school smarts. I think it's great that some people are blessed with that and they learn these principles in other areas of their lives. We all have different gifts and struggles. I just realized, as I reflected on this struggle, that this is something I am grateful for. It changed my perspective from frustration to gratitude.

HIS divine purposes, not mine.

Being home from a mission for two months now has proved to be an interesting time in my life. I have been so blessed and happy, but there has also been some stressors involved. I know that for me it was right to come home a bit early so that I could start school right away. It felt great to jump right into an awesome job and a full schedule with lots of challenging classes. I still love all of my classes but sometime I feel like I can't quite catch my breath. I'm happy, but at the same time I feel like I'm drowning.

This past week was one of those weeks. I've had a lot of good and exciting things happening in my life, but professors at BYU don't schedule "big life decision" into the syllabus. I'm also taking a lot of classes that aren't in my comfort zone of school. I absolutely LOVE what I'm learning, but that doesn't mean I can always do well on the test... In fact, tests this semester have proved to be more frustrating than ever before.

This week I had a lot of things to do and a lot of tests to take and study for. I thought I would get one of the easy tests out of the way so I could have more time to study for my more challenging classes. I studied as much as I could and took it. I felt pretty good about it, but it was different than I had expected. I thought I would still do ok.... nope. It was fine, but not for how easy of a test it should have been. I mean this should have been a 100%. Let me tell you, it wasn't.

I went home feeling discouraged. I had a blessing at the beginning of the school year from my dad that made it sound like I would do well in school this semester. This isn't exactly what I would consider "doing well." (I thought I'd learned my lesson in trying to decide exactly what God means in my blessings.) I also have the stress of not being accepted into my major yet, so therefore, I need good grades to get in.

Sooooo all of this lead me to call my mum and my sister. They're both always really good to listen and talking me through it. They helped give me some great council, but the thing I wanted more than anything was a father's blessing. It wasn't an option because my dad and mum were out of town for the weekend.

I knew I could pray so I did that. I knelt down and poured my heart out to my Heavenly Father. The tears were flowing and as I prayed I felt His love. I also felt an impression to listen to my father's blessing from the beginning of the year (I always record them on my phone.) As I listened to it at first I was just frustrated because it was saying all the things I didn't feel were happening. Then, there was a part of the blessing that I don't think I had ever really heard before. Heavenly Father told me that there would be changes in my life, but that I would feel peace and that He would quickly reach out to me and bless me and He would be with me.

I felt His love surround me. I felt a very clear impression that Heavenly Father didn't say that at the beginning of the year for me to feel comfort then, but that He said that then knowing that what I would want most right at that instant would be a father's blessing. He knew it wouldn't be possible so He gave me a piece of, what I believe was, what I would have heard if I had gotten a father's blessing that very day. It is incredible to me that God loves me so much that He thinks of all the details. He knows it all and has made plans to help us all along the way.

It didn't stop there either. That night when I came home my beautiful roommate Faith (who had overheard my phone conversations and crying) gave me one of the most inspired and beautiful letters I have ever received. I knew again that God was watching out for me. There were things that she said that put my mind at ease like nothing else could. I feel so blessed to have such a fabulous and inspired roommate who could be an answer to my prayers.

Then it didn't even stop there. The next morning I was doing my gospel studies and I was watching a Mormon Message called Daily Bread: Experience and it was just what I needed to hear. Elder Christofferson says,

"Though I suffered then, as I look back now, I am grateful that there was not a quick solution to my problem. The fact that I was forced to turn to God for help almost daily over an extended period of years taught me truly how to pray and get answers to prayer and taught me in a very practical way to have faith in God. I came to know my Savior and my Heavenly Father in a way and to a degree that might not have happened otherwise or that might have taken me much longer to achieve."

I have felt that, especially with school. School has never come easy to me. I have always had to work hard and even then, I still don't get the grades that some people do to whom it just comes naturally. It can be frustrating and challenging, but I don't mind because it's teaching me to rely on God. I could never even pretend for a minute that any success that I have, especially in school, is because of me. When I do well, it's a gift from God and it's through His goodness that He has blessed me to do well because it fits into His divine purposes.

This doesn't mean that I don't have to work hard and do my part. What it really means is that I am going to work hard and do my part even if it doesn't result in the miracle of a good test score or ultimately getting into my program. I know that when I do my part it doesn't guarantee the results that I want, but that it always results in what HE knows is best for my eternal progression and when it really comes down to it, that's what I care about.

I'm thankful for a loving Heavenly Father that cares about me enough to let me have these challenges because they help me to rely on Him and whenever we do that we can't help but become more like Him and that's the ultimate goal.

"the hard is what makes it great."

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School is all about your attitude. If you expect to be miserable in a class you will be. If you expect to love a class you will. If you expect to get a bad grade you will. If you expect to do well you will. Obviously more goes into than just thinking, “oh I think I’ll get an A in that class…” You have to be willing to put forth the work because being successful will always require some amount of work. The trick is to want to do that work. The way to do that is your attitude. If you decide that you are going to love something and that you really do want to understand that subject on a deeper level then it won't seem like such a burden when you do all of your reading and homework. It can even become FUN, believe it or not. During the worst parts of classes you can see a bright side to it and it makes it much less unpleasant. For instance, I'm taking a business writing class and the whole first month is grammar... BLEH! I have always hated grammar. It doesn't come naturally to me at all. (But really who DOES it come naturally to, there are exceptions for EVERY rule!!! So confusing....) I started thinking about how horrible it was going to be, but then I remembered how that always makes things worse. So, I told myself all of the advantages of learning grammar. Like on my blog here, I could actually use correct grammar instead of just writing it the way I thought looked best. Once I started thinking of it that way I actually felt a little excited for grammar. 

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that knowledge is empowering. Any knowledge you can get is useful, if only for something good to talk about or being able to relate to more people. My grammar unit will actually empower me to be a more effective and powerful writer. (You can't deny that's empowering.) 

I was watching "A League of Their Own" the other day and this line really stuck out to me and I think it fits perfectly in with school and anything else in life that is hard. "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard then everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great." School is hard. Heck! Life is hard, but that's what makes it great. There something about accomplishing hard things that brings incredible joy and satisfaction. When I heard this quote it made me think of all of my greatest moments and accomplishments, and I realized that they all came from something that was hard. The hard really is what makes it great and if we remember that then our attitudes will change towards hard things and then you can enjoy them even throughout the hard.