I realized this shortly before I dropped out of high school. Nobody who hired me ever asked for my grades. I appreciated teacher's critique of my work if I thought his own skill was significantly superior to mine. Yet ultimately I did not give a crap about whether I had 2.5 or 4.0 GPA.
I was surrounded by perfectionist people who would retake a class because of A-, but after a while I realized they were just playing a game I wasn't interested in.
I am interested in creating impressive graphics code/designing things that don't suck/creating things of high aesthetic value. I am interested in getting paid because it allows me to have independence and concentrate on creating those things, and not feel like a parasite. That is my game, so to speak.
I did not see a very strong correlation between grades and the above so it ended up low on my list of priorities. Just like a game of chess, it made me smarter at those things I wanted to do, but I couldn't dedicate a lot of time to chess or gaming the teachers, just because I did not give a crap about those things.
I know I'm going against the zeitgeist here but I think grade, SAT scores, or degrees don't mean a lot in life.
I recently had to work with legacy code written by a guy with the highest degree possible in US. The code was hard to read, did not use clearly superior architectures, lacked documentation, and quite frankly, I could've done a lot better. There was no empathy at all to the person who will inherit the project but the "I HAVE PHD" feeling of smugness I felt strongly.
One of the worst math instructors I knew had a graduate degree which she liked to brag about more than everybody thought was appropriate to her skill.
On the other hand, I was in touch with several professors who were clearly brilliant and well-spoken... obviously education doesn't necessarily fuck up your sense of humility and introspective self-critique.
I was surrounded by perfectionist people who would retake a class because of A-, but after a while I realized they were just playing a game I wasn't interested in.
I am interested in creating impressive graphics code/designing things that don't suck/creating things of high aesthetic value. I am interested in getting paid because it allows me to have independence and concentrate on creating those things, and not feel like a parasite. That is my game, so to speak.
I did not see a very strong correlation between grades and the above so it ended up low on my list of priorities. Just like a game of chess, it made me smarter at those things I wanted to do, but I couldn't dedicate a lot of time to chess or gaming the teachers, just because I did not give a crap about those things.
I know I'm going against the zeitgeist here but I think grade, SAT scores, or degrees don't mean a lot in life.
I recently had to work with legacy code written by a guy with the highest degree possible in US. The code was hard to read, did not use clearly superior architectures, lacked documentation, and quite frankly, I could've done a lot better. There was no empathy at all to the person who will inherit the project but the "I HAVE PHD" feeling of smugness I felt strongly.
One of the worst math instructors I knew had a graduate degree which she liked to brag about more than everybody thought was appropriate to her skill.
On the other hand, I was in touch with several professors who were clearly brilliant and well-spoken... obviously education doesn't necessarily fuck up your sense of humility and introspective self-critique.