By Jessica Lin — Used to chase grades. Now chases understanding. Grades followed anyway.
Last updated: May 2026
I took a class in college called “Introduction to Film.” I thought it would be easy. It was. The professor showed movies. We wrote short papers. I figured out what he wanted to hear. I wrote that. I got an A.
I remember almost nothing from that class. Not the movies. Not the concepts. Not a single thing I learned. I got an A. I learned nothing.
The next semester, I took a philosophy class. “Existentialism.” Hard. The readings were dense. The professor asked questions I could not answer. I got a C on the first paper.
I went to office hours. I asked for help. I read the papers again. I thought about what I actually believed, not what the professor wanted to hear.
I got a B on the next paper. Then another B. At the end of the semester, I had a B+. Not an A. But I learned more in that class than in any other.
I still remember what I learned in that philosophy class. Camus. Sartre. Absurdism. Freedom. Choice. The idea that we are responsible for our own lives. That stuck.
The A I forgot. The B+ I remember.
What I Learned
Grades are not learning.
This sounds obvious. It took me years to believe it. An A can mean you understood the material. It can also mean you figured out the teacher. Those are different.
Hard classes teach more.
Easy classes feel good. Hard classes feel bad in the moment. They teach you more. Not about the subject. About thinking.
The grade is not the goal.
The goal is to understand. The grade is just a signal. I was chasing the signal. I forgot what it was signaling.
What I Changed
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Chased the A | Chased understanding |
| Wrote what the teacher wanted | Wrote what I thought |
| Avoided hard classes | Took hard classes |
| Remembered nothing | Remembered things |
I did not stop caring about grades entirely. They matter for jobs and grad school. But I stopped treating them as the only thing that matters.
What I Am Not Saying
I am not saying grades are useless. They open doors.
I am not saying you should try to get C’s. Try to get A’s. Just do not mistake the grade for the learning.
I am just saying: I got an A in a class and learned nothing. I got a B+ in another class and learned a lot. The grade did not tell the whole story.
A Question Worth Asking
Look at the classes you have taken. Which ones do you remember? Which ones changed how you think?
For me, it was not the A’s. It was the hard ones. The ones I almost dropped. The ones where I had to work.
Grades fade. Learning stays.
The Bottom Line
I got an A in a film class. I remember nothing.
I got a B+ in a philosophy class. I remember what I learned.
The grade was not the learning. The learning was the learning.
I figured that out late. I am glad I figured it out at all.
About the author: Jessica Lin cares less about grades now. She cares more about what she actually takes away.
This article reflects personal experience. Grades matter. They are not the only thing that matters.
