C is the Magic Letter by Jennifer

C is the Magic Letter by Jennifer - May 2014 Scholarship Essay

Just get C’s. Most people will probably think that this advice is terrible to tell your child who is in college but it was just the thing I needed to hear. I always liked school anyway so my parents never had a problem with me not doing my homework or not studying for an exam. I wanted to do well to make my parents proud and for myself as well. If I put enough effort into school I would be good at it. Believe me, it wasn’t easy. I was always envious of the kids who said they didn’t study at all and ended up getting 98% on a test. How did they do it?

I would literally have to read a chapter three times and still wasn’t sure if I had a grasp on the material. I would read through it once to get familiar with it. Then read it a second time and highlight the important parts. The third time was to let it all really sink in (hopefully) and find things I might have missed the first two times.

However, I did this myself. My parents never told me, “OK, now make sure you read each chapter three times and we want a summary when you are done.” The only thing my parents said to me was, “All you need to do is get C’s.” Now, they did not say this because they were bad parents. It was quite the opposite. They said this because they would see me stressed out because I wanted to do well. They had a hard time seeing me put pressure on myself and gave me the best advice they could have. Yes, all I had to do was get a C in a class in order to pass it. This was true, but I wanted that A. Those A’s were what I was after. Not because my parents told me that I had to get them (because they didn’t. Remember, I just had to get a C) but because I wanted them.

As I would talk to my classmates in between classes I recall one specific time when a girl said that her parents were going to “kill her” because she got a B in one of her classes. “Kill you?” I repeated, “…for getting a B? My parents are happy if I get a C.” All five of them looked at me in disbelief. I felt like I was the most popular kid in school! I would hate to feel the pressure that my friends were feeling from their parents or anyone else to do well in anything. What one does effects their life and I can understand parents wanting what is best for their children but what they think is best and what is really best are not always the same thing.

I thank my parents all the time for being the awesome parents that they are. I remind them how they would always tell me to just get C’s. Sometimes they don’t believe they said it but I remind them that yes they did and it was one of the best things they could have said to me. I’m sure there are many people who would not agree that this is the best education advice but it was for me. I graduated from UCLA as part of the National Psi Chi Honor Society and now on a mission to obtain my MBA. Not bad for someone who was told, “You just have to get C’s.”