Confessions of a High School Valedictorian
By: Sophia Pei ‘22
Transitioning into college is a journey, and one of the greatest obstacles is developing a growth mindset. It can be challenging going from being top of your high school class to “average” in a USC curved class. Nevertheless, it’s vital that college students all learn to dissociate self-esteem and self-worth from grades and prevent a fixed mindset from holding them back. The following is a very personal account of my own slow development to having a healthier mindset about not only grades, but about myself.
A little background about me:
Weird Flex but okay
I was the valedictorian of Santa Monica High School’s 2018 class of about 800 students. This is honestly a weird title to have and one that I’m honestly uncomfortable to share. I don’t say that in a way to be self-deprecating but it’s not something I’m necessarily *proud* of because it isn’t an achievement I worked toward. Yes, like the 32 other candidates, I had maintained a 4.0 GPA and yes I was involved in various student clubs on campus, but becoming valedictorian was never a goal that I (and I’m assuming most people) actively worked towards. Receiving the honor was exactly that, an honor, but it was also scary for many reasons. As a generally future-oriented person, it was weird receiving this capstone recognition at such a stage of my life. Senior year was rough for many reasons and honestly there were so many other amazing candidates that I experienced imposter syndrome. What scared me most however, was that the title of valedictorian would mean that I peaked in high school. What I didn’t realize at the time was it also consolidated my mental linkage between grades and self-worth.
Freshman year
Freshman year of college was definitely a bigger transition for me socially than academically. It was the first time I didn’t lunch everyday with my close circle of friends who I’ve more or less had since first grade. Like many others, it was also my first time living away from home. Academically however, I felt well prepared. Freshman year of college, I mainly took classes that I had already taken in high school: BISC121, BISC221, CHEM115, WRIT150, etc. It reinforced my view that to do well, I simply needed to manage my time well, study, and show up to class. Of course, I had to put in more than I did in high school but overall it was a breeze. Being the achiever-type personality that I was, I stressed out about the smallest mistakes: I earned a 110 out of 120?! Unacceptable. I will work harder and do better. For my entire life up until this point, my ambition to be perfect had been my strength. And freshman year, this mindset meant that I made the top marks, even though I had to sacrifice of sleep and other life priorities.
Oops
Well. Sophomore year hit me.
This semester, I’m taking my first programming class. For some background, my only experience with programming was my VERY rudimentary experience coding for the famous Science Olympiad section: GAME ON (in the very highly regarded language, Scratch). For those less aware of the distinction of between programming languages, this is basically like saying I tried to learn Italian having talked in pig Latin all my life. For the first time, I was not top of the class — far from it. And that hurt.
What hurt more was my grade on the midterm. It is the worst score I’ve ever received thus far in my life. That sounds so extreme now and looking back I was being unrealistic but at the time that was how I felt. That grade redefined how I saw myself. While there are so many other things that I know matter more—friends, family, health, etc.—I would be lying if I said grades didn’t matter to me. And this wasn’t like before where I got a good mark but I still wanted to improve. This was far from good and I just felt helpless.
Failure is embarrassing and often hard to share with others. I think what made me feel even more isolated was that my classmates, the vocal ones, were the ones expressing how “easy” the exam was.
I began to think that I was just “bad” at programming. Aside from the experience gap, I also realized that the way I approached coding on a fundamental level was ineffective. I felt like I worked just as hard, if not harder than most my classmates – after all, I had to compensate for my lack of prior experience. Yet that hard work, unlike before, didn’t lead to what I wanted. It led to burnout. I started dreading class and working on programming assignments — which though always challenging, now seemed impossible.
Social Support?
My mind kept going back to the conversation I had with my mom after receiving my grade.
First it was:
“Can you drop the class?”
“No the drop deadline has passed and I need this class for my major.”
Then:
“Is this the best major for you?”
“Yes I love my major!”
Finally:
“Are you sure you want to go to medical school?”
At that point I just hung up. That one question affirmed all my worst insecurities, and honestly upset me a lot more than my mom could ever know. What I wanted was for her to remind me of all the dreams I had and tell me they were still achievable, not have them questioned.
It took some processing but I knew she asked from a place of caring, for my best interest. Her questions really did allow me to reassess my priorities and do some much needed soul searching for valid answers.
What do I want?
The first two questions my mom asked tested my passion for school. Though it upset me, my analysis of how indignant I got reminded me that I loved school and I loved learning. But we all enjoy things we’re good at even more. However, doing well doesn’t need to be the reason why I had to keep trying to learn. Doing well is an achievement and unfortunately that doesn’t always correlate with effort or even intelligence (even though society tells us otherwise). What that conversation with my mom made me realize was that I enjoyed learning for learning’s sake, not for the sake of making high marks simply so I can be some “perfect candidate” for medical school. What I needed was to change my mindset so that reflected my priorities. If I’m learning because I enjoy learning, what does it even matter that I’m not #1 in a class? I also enjoy baking and will continue baking even though I recognize that I’m far from being the best patisserie.
Changing how I’ve been conditioned to think, is much easier said than done. The first step for me was to realize that the midterm is in the past. Nothing I can do now can change the grade I received. Thankfully, it IS only a midterm, and there’s still a final that I can focus on. The second thing I needed to come to terms with is that I need to be realistic and realize that I can still achieve my long term goals even with this setback. One grade in an introduction to programming class won’t be the what prevents me from my life goals.
After realizing I couldn’t be a fairy princess for a living, I couldn’t see myself becoming anything other than physician. I love being able to help people. From a young age, I learned that what made me happiest was being able to help people through their struggles and be that steady person others could rely on. While there’s a lot of ways to achieve this, for me, that and my love for understanding biology works easily translated to becoming a doctor. As a physician I would have the privilege of being able to support patients and their loved ones at the most critical moments and hopefully also have the skillset to help them resolve their issues. This has been my overarching goal for as long as I could remember.
Writing this post put me back in a vulnerable place.
Ironically, I had a few friends call me during that time who were going through a similar situation. Of course, I told them that grades didn’t matter, that there are so many better indicators of what an amazing human being they are and how this wasn’t going to impede their future success in any significant way. I realized the hypocrisy in this, but I couldn’t view my own failure with the same forgiving attitude.
On top of struggling with having a healthier mindset towards grades I realized that I really struggle with talking to people that I’m close to about these challenges. I feel like a lot of my close friends, especially those who’ve known me since high school, expect that academic things come easily for me. As a tutor and friend I feel like I’m generally the person offering other academic and emotional support. I wanted so much to be that role model for them that it isolated me from being open about my own struggles and led to a lot of internalizing. I’m so fortunate to have amazing, supportive friends, and I recognize that, but it’s still a challenge for me to open up to them about these things.
Everyone has setbacks and failures in life and what’s important is how those setbacks are dealt with. One of the best way to process problems is to consult others. One of the biggest take aways I took from this experience is that asking for help is very okay. Through talking with my friends, advisors, and mentors, I’ve realized moping about my grades isn’t productive and that there are options and valid steps I can take.
Hopefully this post is the start to a longer process to having a healthier mindset towards school and life, and to being more open about personal failures.
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