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what is GPA?

3 min read

GPA is a measure of several things

  1. Disciplined capabilities
    1. Ability to budget time
    2. Efficiency of workflow
    3. Ability to hold reverence for work
  2. Temperamental capabilities (mix of disciplined and innate)
    1. Willingness to strive for high performance as a non-primary motivation (Type A, Type B)
      • This can be paired with a lot of things (personal enthusiasm, valuation of status, etc.)
    2. Total long-term obsession with a subject
      • A blessing and a curse (Autism adjacent, usually)
      • A high GPA is rarely reflected by a willingness to strive for high performance as a primary motivation because it is too long term of an endeavor to be sustainable. The exception being this
    3. Psychopathic traits or the ability to compartmentalize (healthily or unhealthily) emotions in a way that does not affect the performance of prior commitments
      • Can be indicative of compartmentalization (Lacking connected to emotions) but not always
      • Healthy Compartmentalization/Emotional regulation: the ability for a person to act against the grain of their feelings and yet still find space to feel them fully is a powerful trait far beyond GPA
    4. Personability
      • Personable people are more likely to get help from their classmates and peers
  3. Innate capabilities
    1. Learning Agility
      • High rote memorization abilities
      • Highly observant
      • Tend to ask great questions in lectures
      • A powerful indicator
    2. Short term ability to stay focused
      • Tend not to enjoy procrastinating alone
      • May be less inclined towards philosophical discussion and creative impulse, since solitary procrastination is indicative of such
    3. High tolerance for context switching
      • Ability to do accomplish many different tasks throughout the day
    4. Past exposure in the field
      • A powerful indicator
      • It’s generally good to put yourself into situations where you will grow rather than situations which will only reaffirm what you are already good at. However, such a characteristic can be indicative of a personal enthusiasm of the subject
  4. Intrinsic motivators
    1. Personal enthusiasm of the subject
      • Powerful indicator: “enthusiasm is 25% of your grade”
    2. A drive to make the world a better place
      • Not a common indicator
      • Not likely to directly impact GPA, since many classes are irrelevant to what one’s area of impact may be, but may be a motivator if one believes the if the extrinsic rewards of achieving such a high GPA are able to enable such an impact
  5. Extrinsic Motivators
    1. Personal Valuation on future economic or societal status (resume, grad school)
      • A common, but not a powerful indicator since one’s idea of high economic or societal status can change over time
      • Obtaining a high GPA for the sake of wanting to go on to grad school is a shallow motivator
      • Indicates a fixation on non-trivial status
    2. Unquestioning commitment to a long term pursuit
      • Powerful indicator because it maintains academic consistency
      • Indicates a lack of openness to internalize novel or even oppositional paradigms
      • You should almost always question your commitments, but during crunch time it may be healthy to “turn off” this motivator temporarily
    3. Personal Valuation of GPA for it’s own sake
      • The most shallow motivator to value GPA
      • Indicates a fixation on trivial status
      • Powerful indicator, because it can never be too high

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