Who Am I Beyond My GPA?
Written by Shelby Edison
Graphics by Mahak Saxena
Name? Shelby.
Hobbies? Being the most Type A person in every room I enter.
No, really, what are your hobbies? ...Does doing homework on Friday nights count?
I’ve always had a Type A personality. In elementary school, I overextended myself as much as a 10-year-old could, joining every extracurricular available and studying more than I probably ever needed to for weekly spelling tests.
I wouldn’t dare break any rule.
I popped a bag of potato chips by accident in the cafeteria one day and felt myself immediately fill to the brim with the dread of breaking the no loud noises rule.
In middle school, I earned the nickname “Goody Two Shoes” from my friends. During my bat mitzvah service, they spelled out the letters GTS with their hands as a way to cheer me on. I wore the title like a badge of honor.
To none of my family or friend’s surprise, I didn’t break a single rule in high school. No parties, no breaking curfews, and no blowing off studying to hang out with friends.
My mom forced me to socialize on the weekends throughout freshman year to keep me from reading my history textbook for hours upon hours (don’t worry; I have a half-decent social life now). You see, my entire school career was dedicated to one thing: getting a good GPA and getting into college because of it. There are pros and cons to my decision to become a study fiend for twelve years.
On the bright side, I got good grades and test scores and sent a transcript that I felt extremely proud of to my dream universities. And get this, I didn’t completely sacrifice my mental health or social life to perfect my application!
However, I let a 3-digit grade point average define my self-worth and identity over the last twelve years. And that, for lack of better words, is not... great.
I sent my applications off to colleges, decisions are rolling in, and my GPA is obsolete now. I’ve acted my whole life as if I were my GPA; now I don’t know who I’m supposed to be without it. Hobbies? Trying to break out of the Type-A, GPA-is-all-that-matters mold.
My new tag-line (and laptop screen saver) is be Type A-. There exists no universe where I could simply blow off school work. So, I’ve settled on trying just the slightest bit less than I usually would.
If in freshman year I’d immediately jump into studying when I got home on Fridays, now I intentionally set my work aside until Saturday.
If in sophomore year I would spend three hours studying for a test, now I pencil two hours into my study schedule.
If in junior year I’d sob over a “bad” test or quiz grade, now, I really try to not do that.
I also found that having creative outlets and hobbies can infuse meaning into my life that doesn’t need to rely on school. I jumped back into my middle school obsession with reading and discovered that my cringey, pre-teen self wasn’t right about a whole lot of things, but was entirely correct about the magic of books. Consuming some feminist literature allowed me to get lost in stories and rage against the patriarchy, which distracted me from my economics homework in a blissful study break.
Creating a Dungeons and Dragons campaign let me spend afternoons knee-deep in world-building. Crafting multiple complicated plots and characters certainly gives me some nerdy purpose.
Even more exciting, I returned to my all-time favorite hobby of roller skating -- mapping out new routes to ride down in my neighborhood. Who would’ve thought that mental health experts were right when they said that exercise can ease stress? Maybe I should’ve followed their advice earlier, but I’m happy to practice it now.
Combatting a slight identity crisis with books, skates, and a few twenty-sided dice helped me understand more about myself on a deeper level, rather than the surface level impression of an intelligent, hard-working young woman that I let seep into my subconscious. Yet, I cannot understate how incredibly challenging it is to try and learn more about myself during a pandemic.
Even as I try to push aside my calculus homework in favor of Gloria Steinem memoirs, I keep thinking about what was supposed to be mine this year: prom, spring break trips with friends, watching my last all-school musical in a packed auditorium, senior prank week, or campaigning for superlatives in the hallways.
In a previously normal year, I imagined myself ditching textbooks for midnight drives with friends.
This year, I feel stuck inside my bedroom submitting assignment after assignment to the endless void of online school. The workflow has yet to slow down, and my attempts at becoming an A- student became much more challenging than I had originally expected.
If I could go to my first concert, see indie movies at the theatre, or attend my first high school party, maybe then I could discover more of myself beyond a GPA. But with only a laptop and spiral notebooks for company, my grades swallow me whole.
Name? Shelby
Hobbies? I’ll get back to you on that. I’m figuring it out.
Who are you? A huge work in progress.
See, second semester senior year means soul searching. But it’s so hard to shift my perspective after only seeing a superb student for so long. I know in my heart that I’m more than my GPA. I can’t articulate who I am yet, and there’s something beautiful in that. I can be anyone.
It’s not too late to try a grunge aesthetic or cut off my hair or learn to play the ukulele or go backpacking in the woods for a week. But I could be anyone -- and that’s overwhelming.
I want someone to tell me who I am, but I’ve got to embark on this quest alone. I have to quantify my personality in memories and feelings and stories. Anything but numbers. Anything but a GPA.