OC HIGH / STUDENT NEWS & VIEWS : MY TURN : More Than Making the Grade

Will anyone care if the President of the United States received a C in chemistry in 10th grade? Will people remember their score on the SAT when working and raising a family?

Yet the pressure for good grades and high scores--especially for honors students--is very intense.

It can be a curse to be “smart” because you are continually expected to be the best. Other people create standards, and if you don’t measure up to their guidelines, you are disappointed in yourself. But why should people torture themselves because someone else’s expectations are so high?

Students in an honors class are automatically viewed differently by peers, teachers and parents. Branded with stereotypes like “brains” by peers because we messed up the curve for a test. At least one parent hopes we will become a successful doctor or lawyer. Teachers consider us robots who can handle any mount of homework. Social life is nonexistent, of course.

The level of competition in an honors class is widely different from a college prep course. If a person does not know an answer in an advanced class, 10 other eager hands quickly fill the gap. Everybody is aware of each other’s grades and regularly compare scores. It is ironic because sometimes there is more concern with other people’s grades than one’s own. Students pick the smarter people for lab partners, and teachers call on the smarter people more often.

Some students go to extremes to keep up. Some wake up at 3 a.m. to begin or finish homework and use pills to stay awake. Lunches and snack times are spent in the library studying. It is impossible to have free time because you have a calculus quiz, physics test to cram for and English term paper due tomorrow. Some resort to cheating to “get by.” Homework in five subjects begins immediately after school and is rarely finished by 11 p.m. If a student has a job or sports, 2 a.m. is bedtime. All-nighters are common. Weekend projects are routine. Seven days a week for nine months, it is the same cycle.

In the end, all the A’s and Bs and Cs are just letters in the alphabet. What is the point when no one can guarantee that we will be successful? Many self-made millionaires never finished high school.

Life is a balance. Each person must decide where his or her priorities lie.

Michelle Pham, an honors class student, is a junior at Trabuco Hills High School.