You Are More Than Your GPA

By DeMornay Harper
Blog Content Contributor

College life is crazy. It’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle of things especially being constantly surrounded by your peers. It’s honestly difficult not to feel like you aren’t measuring up to where you “should be” based on what the people around you are doing. Because of this pressure we place on ourselves, self-care often takes the back burner. This can easily translate to us valuing getting all of our assignments done over our mental health. Obviously, our academics are important, they are the reason why we are even here in the first place (not to mention we are paying for it), but they aren’t everything. Life is so much bigger than college and I am here to tell you, you are more than your GPA.

Whenever I find myself emotionally distressed but not addressing it because I’m buried under a pile of schoolwork, I have to remind myself what matters more. And my mental state definitely matters more to me than working on my third Account Planning project of the week. School is important but life is life and your emotions towards it are valid. They definitely don’t come when it’s convenient for you.

When I’m stressed but busy with schoolwork, I’ll pause and take a bit of time for myself. Sometimes I will take a hot bath, which always relaxes me. Other times I’ll leave my room and go write in my journal by the river and let the water wash away all of my woes (I really feel like the water has healing powers here). After taking a breather, I typically come back to my work refreshed and with a better head on my shoulders. It can definitely set me back as far as time goes but the work I put out has so much more quality and I feel so much better doing it.

At the end of it all, getting the grade is nice but I would much rather have my sanity. You only have one body and one mind so you have to treat them as special as they are.

Featured image by DeMornay Harper.