Monday, May 10, 2010

peer pressure

UPSE 2010 produces 2 Summa Cum Laude, 24 Magna Cum Laude, and 55 Cum Laude among 155 graduates. And who knows how many Dean's Medalists there are?

I've never really cared about my grades in the past, because in the small, sheltered world of Kong Hua, which produced our Senior Batch of 109 students, surviving came easily. I never studied, and was more immersed in extra-curriculars and "getting the most out of life". Somehow, even with my rather pathetic grades, I got into the UP School of Economics - I think all that praying helped. And now, for the first time in my life, I'm worried about not finishing on the top half of my batch - which I've never had to worry about before.

There's a very slim chance of me graduating with honors. In fact, there's barely any chance of me qualifying for the Dean's Medal, which is like "honorable mention" of our School. I'm not particularly worried about the future, or getting a job, so in that sense my grades don't really matter to me. But I do care about not getting left behind, and when more than half your batch graduates with honors and YOU don't... That sucks. Seriously.

In the School of Econ, they take "competition" to a whole new level. Except in this case, you can only win or lose to yourself.

PS Allyanna Anglim was my classmate last semester, in Econ 141: International Economics. How she could have maintained her godlike GWA despite going through that class, I have no idea. That girl's a genius!

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