Name: Frank Leonard Tansaulu (16318192)

What Straight-A Students Get Wrong

Author: Adam Grant

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/opinion/college-gpa-career-success.html

A recent article in the New York Times, “What Straight-A Students Get Wrong”,
concern to the problem about the correlation of student’s grades to their success. Author
Adam Grant, state that he didn’t agree with some students who think that grade is
everything, because base on his experience, or some research and study result, show that
the student's grade does not decide their success in the future; there are some factors that
more important and more significant to determine our success than academic grade. Maybe
he was right because when we become a worker in the future, we need soft skills like good
communication and some good relationships with others, and our grade doesn't help us to
complete our work assignments. But, become a Straight-A student isn’t a mistake, because
when we study hard every day to get the best score, it will train us to become a warrior,
hard worker, and a disciplined person, and these habits can be our preparation to enter the
world of work and reach the success in the future.

According to author Grant, being a straight-A student is a pretty bad thing, as if it

would be detrimental to the lives of students. “Some sacrifice their health; a few have even
tried to sue their school after falling short.” (Grant 2018). Maybe it's true that to get perfect
grades must struggle and sacrifice a few things. But, that is the struggle. When we want
something, we must try to give the best in accordance with our respective capacities. I’m
sure, the sacrifices that we make will not be in vain. As the saying, "Hasil tidak akan pernah
mengkhianati usaha" which means "the result will never betray the effort". Of course, this
struggle will shape one's character to be tough, not give up easily, and be competitive,
where characters like these are characters needed in the world of work. In addition, not all
straight-A students do extreme things such as sacrificing health or prosecute their school
when they fail. Based on the article, "11 Post-Grads Will Want to Steal Secret Habits of
Straight-A Students", it is said that one of the main keys that some straight-A students have
done to get good grades is to set time and priority. If we can manage our time including
resting, eating, and exercising, our health can also be maintained.

Grant also said that academic grades do not assess by student’s soft skills.
“Academic grades rarely assess qualities like creativity, leadership and teamwork skills…”
(Grant 2018). Not all course grades assess by our academic knowledge. Base on my
experience, there are some courses that assess our social skills and creativity, like
"Pengantar Rekayasa Desain (PRD)". In this course, the students have to make a team,
and then we must do some research and identify a problem. After that, we must design the
possible solution and apply it to a product who can be the solver of the problem. Our
academic grade assesses by our final product that we have made in our team. To make the
product, we must have creativity, good communication, and some soft skills in our team. So,
indirectly, this course assesses by our soft skills.

Grant said that straight-A students have no relationship with the others. “Straight-A
students also miss out socially”(Grant 2018). Be a straight-A student isn't mean become an
anti-social. In my experience, I see that there are some students that have the perfect
grade, have so many relationships with the others. Mostly, they become a good friend, good
tutor, influencer, and some become a person who has a high position in their community.
For example, in the article "11 Secret Habits of Straight-A Students Even Post-Grads Will
Want to Steal", explain about the life of Roman and Melendres. They are straight-A students
who have so many experiences in social life. Roman is active in various communities such
as the tennis team at her school, choir team, student council, and mathematics group. Even
though Roman has many activities, she still has a perfect GPA. Meanwhile, Melendres was
the former President of the Student Organization at his school during high school. While at
university, he joined the soccer and basketball teams, was actively involved in science
exhibitions, and was selected for speeches at the National Honor Society and the National
Association of Student Council. When graduating from university, his GPA is more than
perfect, which is 4.4 with details of A grades in all regular courses, plus two A grades in the
college level honors course (Kiester 2019).

Being a straight-A student is not very bad as stated in the article "What Straight-A
Students Get Wrong". I am sure that everything has its own positive and negative sides, as
well as straight-A students. However, what I regret is that this article only discusses the
negative side of a straight-A student, which is not entirely true. There are still many other
positive sides obtained as a straight-A student, which when compared, the positive side is
more dominant than the negative side. I am worried, this article can lead readers to be lazy
to learn, not struggle to get good grades, or even be anti against straight-A students. Of
course, this is very unexpected, where we should give good motivation to the readers, not
the other way around.

Reference:

Kiester, Edwin. 2019. “11 Secret Habits of Straight-A Students Even Post-Grads Will
Want to Steal.” www.rd.com. https://www.rd.com/advice/parenting/straight-a-students-
secrets/ (April 13, 2019).
Plagiarism checker’s result :