Welcome to college, where dreams are made, ramen is a food group, and suddenly, you’re expected to have it all figured out. As a fresh-faced freshman, it’s easy to think that your grades are the most important thing. After all, in high school you were probably told that if you got bad grades you’d be flipping burgers for the rest of your life. But here’s the real deal: while your grades might help you keep your scholarship or grant, it’s the learning that’s going to help you survive the real world (and maybe impress a future boss who doesn’t care about your GPA).

Spoiler alert: college isn’t high school 2.0. It’s about learning, not just notching your academic belt with as many A’s as possible. The real challenge? Convincing your brain to care more about soaking in knowledge than doom-scrolling the gradebook. Let’s face it, the pressure to get good grades in college is like trying to get a selfie with a cat—frustrating, nerve-wracking, and you’ll probably end up with a scratch or two.

If you’re obsessing over perfect grades, you might find yourself memorizing random facts just long enough to ace the test, then forgetting them faster than last semester’s syllabus. As Gerald E. Knesek says in his article “Why Focusing on Grades Is a Barrier to Learning,” cramming and chasing grades often leads to shallow learning. In other words, you become a walking trivia machine, but with none of the fun of actually knowing stuff. And, fun fact, college courses assume you remember what you learned last semester. So unless you want to be that student who keeps asking, “Wait, what’s a hypothesis again?” halfway through your biology degree, it’s time to care about learning, not just grades. According to a survey of research on grades and learning, students who are too focused on grades “think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in learning itself” (Kjærgaard, et al. 1).

When you get too wrapped up in your GPA, you may also develop a serious case of Fear of Failure Syndrome. Symptoms include avoiding anything even remotely challenging, playing it safe in every class, and basically living in a bubble where creativity and risk-taking go to die. Trust me, living in that bubble isn’t going to help you in the real world, where failure isn’t a giant red “F” but a step on the way to figuring out how to do things better, like making decent mac and cheese. Knesek calls this out in his article, saying that students too focused on grades miss out on the chance to learn from mistakes. After all, who cares about understanding if you can’t get the right answer on a Scantron? Answer: future employers care. According to Kevin Gray, at least two-thirds of employers want college graduates with good communication skills, strong critical thinking skills, and the ability to be flexible.

Let’s be real for a second: stressing over grades can turn you into a ball of anxiety wrapped in a burrito of sleepless nights. According to Marco Learning’s article “Grades vs Learning—Shifting Attention to What’s Important,” obsessing over grades is a one-way ticket to Burnout City, population: you. Burnout isn’t exactly the goal of your freshman year, right? I mean, there’s a reason why we want to avoid looking like a college meme of someone drowning in textbooks: it’s not a good look.

So if you find yourself sitting in the library at 2 a.m. with an energy drink in hand, silently weeping over a B-minus, maybe it’s time to rethink things.

On the other side of this academic seesaw, we have learning—a word that might make you roll your eyes now but will eventually become your best friend. According to Matt Gilhooly in “What’s the Ultimate Goal: Learning or the Grade?” the true purpose of education isn’t to stuff your brain with facts like it’s a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s to help you develop those valuable things called skills, like critical thinking, problem-solving, and sounding smart during job interviews.

Here’s the best part: when you focus on learning instead of sweating over grades, you might actually start to enjoy the process. Studies have shown that students who focus on learning are more motivated than students who focus on grades (Kjærgaard, et al. 2). So if you shift your focus from the dreaded grade to learning, you’ll be that student who raises their hand, asks good questions, and doesn’t mind exploring tough topics—because hey, growth happens when you push yourself. Plus, Gilhooly reminds us that learning builds skills employers actually care about—you know, like thinking, adapting, and not crumbling under pressure when your first job asks you to “pivot.”

Here’s the kicker: college is just the warm-up for a lifetime of learning. Once you throw your graduation cap in the air (hopefully while not tripping on the stage), you don’t magically stop learning. The world’s changing too fast for that. So if you train yourself to care more about the process of learning than the grade attached to it, you’re setting yourself up to be adaptable and successful in the long haul.

Because newsflash: your boss won’t care about that one time you got a C in Organic Chemistry. They’ll care about whether you can learn and apply new information, solve problems, and think on your feet.

But before you declare grades as your archnemesis, let’s be clear: they’re not totally useless. Grades are feedback, like the little emoji your professor sends to say, “Hey, you’re doing okay,” or “Maybe spend a little less time watching Netflix and more time studying.” It’s all about perspective—grades aren’t your destiny, but they can help you figure out where you need to improve. So don’t treat them like a final judgment on your intelligence, just a heads-up on how you’re doing so far.

Ready to stop stressing and start learning? Here’s a quick how-to:

1. Set Learning Goals: Instead of chasing A’s, try setting goals like “I want to understand how gravity actually works” or “Maybe this semester, I’ll stop skipping the intro to my textbooks.”

2. Ask All the Questions: You know how people say there’s no such thing as a dumb question? That’s actually true, so ask away! The more you ask, the more you’ll learn (and yes, you’ll seem very engaged).

3. Take Feedback Seriously: If your grades aren’t what you hoped for, don’t cry about it—learn from it. Use feedback like a roadmap to help you improve.

4. Challenge Accepted: Tackle hard stuff. The stuff you avoid because it’s hard is exactly where the magic happens. Growth comes from doing things that make you say, “Uh-oh, I might not get an A here.”

5. Reflect on What You’ve Learned: Every now and then, stop and think, “What am I actually learning here?” It helps to realize that you’re growing, not just collecting report cards.

As you dive into college, remember that grades are not the endgame—learning is. Shift your focus to what really matters (hint: it’s not that A in Intro to Pottery), and you’ll set yourself up for success in and beyond the classroom. Like our friends Marco Learning, Knesek, and Gilhooly suggest, putting learning first will help you build the skills, resilience, and joy that no grade can offer. Plus, there’s way less crying involved.

And let’s be real—grades don’t make memories. Learning does.

Works Cited

Gilhooly, Matt. “What’s the Ultimate Goal: Learning or the Grade?” Medium, Medium Corporation, 24 Sept. 2024, medium.com/age-of-awareness/whats-the-ultimate-goal-learning-or-the-grade-848833db7a5d. 

Gray, Kevin. “What Are Employers Looking for When Reviewing College Students’ Resumes?” NACE, National Association of Colleges and Employers, 9 Dec. 2024, www.naceweb.org/talent-acquisition/candidate-selection/the-key-attributes-employers-are-looking-for-on-graduates-resumes.

Kjærgaard, Annemette, et al. “Does Gradeless Learning Affect Students’ Academic Performance? A Study of Effects over Time.” Studies in Higher Education, vol. 49, no. 2, July 2023, pp. 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2023.2233007.

Knesek, Gerald. “Why Focusing on Grades Is a Barrier to Learning.” Harvard Business Impact, Harvard Business School Publishing, 24 Apr. 2022, hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/why-focusing-on-grades-is-a-barrier-to-learning.

“Grades vs Learning – Shifting Attention to What’s Important.” Marco Learning, 10 Aug. 2018, marcolearning.com/retiring-the-red-pen-shifting-attention-from-grades-to-learning/.