What's your dream?
I'd be honest with you. If you would just compare me to others in terms of academic, I will pale in comparison.
But if you would just give me a chance, and finish reading through my posts, I'll hopefully show you that I'm different, and I'm just as worthy.
If you would just give me that fighting chance.
Today, society still places a large stigma on bad grades. B,C,D and fail grades are constantly frowned upon. Can't blame them - spaces in the best schools are limited, and grades are a good gauge / criteria to select and eliminate.
But the fact that you're actually reading this, brings warmth to my heart. You're different.
Thank you for giving me the chance, despite my not so stellar grades. I'm not proud of my grades, but that doesn't mean I did not give it my best. My bad grades don't mean that I was not sincerely trying hard to push through.
Perhaps I chose to take the wrong subjects at A levels; Perhaps the teaching method was wrong; Perhaps I'm just not intellectual enough; Perhaps its all of the above reasons.
I can spend a lifetime thinking about what went wrong. Or I can choose to focus on the future. Whatever the reason, I'm still going to move forward like I always have - because the ones with the bad grades aren't always the ones who do not succeed in life.
In fact, the ones with bad grades, are often those with a greater wealth of life experiences; those with greater appreciation for things around them; those with greater audacity to pick themselves up from a fall to fight, keep trying& finally succeed.
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill. History has shown that the world's greatest inventors, leaders and entrepreneurs are those who refused to get weighed down by grades and superficial markings.
The following four examples are good evidences.
(Retrieved from/Credits to: http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/OnFailingG.html)
1. Winston Churchill repeated a grade during elementary school and, when he entered Harrow, was placed in the lowest division of the lowest class. Later, he twice failed the entrance exam to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He was defeated in his first effort to serve in Parliament.
2. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was "sub-normal," and one of his teachers described him as "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams." He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.
3. Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."
4. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.
With their transcripts of failing grades (sometimes not even graduating at all), they were by society's standards - FAILURES. Today, they are our nobel prize winners and renowned individuals we look to for inspiration.
Do you have a dream?? Just like everyone else, I too have a dream. As I type this post, that dream is coming closer and closer to reality. My dream, the goal that I have been fighting to work towards for the longest time (the many years I struggled academically) - to get into a good local university. What's your dream?
My dream is but a small humbled dream. It may mean nothing much to you, as it is nothing close to changing the world. But it is important to me because I know that my parents cannot afford to send me for an overseas education.
By grades, I'm undeserving. However, the next few posts are reasons why I'm different, and why you should take a chance on me.
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