Renee conflates academic success with real world success:
Right now, I’m getting the top grades in my biology and chemistry classes, and no, they’re not all girls. I got the highest grade in my class on my chem prelim last time around. (I have another one coming up Thursday that I really should be studying for now).
What am I supposed to do, fail on purpose?
No, of course you shouldn’t give up your pursuit of excellence in your academic endeavors. Learning should always be prized, for its own sake. But neither should you confuse academic success with material success or expect the latter to flow naturally from the former.
Academic success is much simpler than real world success because it depends upon one very simple principle: please the giver of grades. This generally involves the ability to follow directions, do what is expected and show up to class. The problem is that these abilities are almost completely irrelevant when it comes to achieving success in the real world. At best, they will help one become a reasonably well-compensated worker bee in a large organization where results are measured by subjective performance reviews given by one’s superior – in other words, pleasing the giver of grades.
Many have noted that few of the most successful self-made men have undergone traditional educational paths. This is not an accident. Success in the real world requires risk-taking, creativity and resiliency, three things that no student with a 4.0 has ever been required to demonstrate, not even at the finest schools. Unlike the caring teacher or the nurturing professor, the market doesn’t give a damn about you and you’re not going to get a do-over on that failed demonstration to the all-important potential strategic partner because the cat that Daddy gave you on your fifth birthday had to be rushed to the vet and you just didn’t have time to finish your preparations.
What Renee and other young women need to keep in mind is that they have been sold two fraudulent bills of goods. One, of course, is that men will value them for their accomplishments and find them more desirable with a career and a college degree. The second is that academic success is realistisc and adequate preparation for marketplace success. This latter reality is becoming ever more apparent as women now make up 57 percent of this generation’s college students but are conspicuous primarily by their absence from the latest generation of entrepeneurs.
It boils down to this. School is talk. Real work is action. You can talk all you like, but an idea only becomes a product or a service through action. Now, it is true that men and women who talk a good game can make a lot of money for a while – I know a few high-priced New York consultants; they’re totally useless but they do make a lot of money convincing large companies to pay for their banal “services” – but at the end of the day they haven’t built anything or really accomplished anything. And they know it.
There are women who have the guts, insight and tenacity to build a business from the ground up, but it’s interesting to note that the Debbie Fields, the Mary Kay Ashs and the Oprah Winfreys of the world have all achieved great market success with very little in the way of an academic foundation.
So, get your good grades. Take pride in them. They will give you an initial leg up. But that’s it.