While reading Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins last night, I was completely shocked while reading about cheating in schools. If I remember correctly, the statistic was that 90% of teenagers cheat on homework. There was other percentages about test and that sort of thing as well.
At first I thought, who on earth would do that? Sure, some people do but how could it me that many. I started to think that I was one of the 10% then actually realized that wasn’t true. Let me confess, here and now, I often copied other people’s math homework right before class.
Shameful, I know.
To defend myself a little, the ironic part was I always did well on the test. The person who I cheated off of for homework, cheated off me for test. Plus, I never cheated in college. That degree is one hundred percent mine. I think that was maybe the big difference for me. High school was something that you absolutely had to do. College was a choice I made so I felt a drive to do it well.
Another thing this book has made me think about so far is where I fitted in on the Overachiever vs Slacker scale while I was in school. My high school was definately very different than the one described in the book. The first school I went to consisted of a large numbr of kids that knew they would go to college at BYU, go on a mission, or get married right away. As a freshman, I took AP classes but the stress of high grades didn’t come through yet.
The last three years I attended a fairly small high school. I think there was maybe 200 people tops in my graduating class. Because the school was small, there was not a huge range of classes. There was only a handful of AP classes. I think I took the only science one available and all the english ones. Grade wise I got mostly A’s. A few B’s and gasp, a C in advance math which I dropped the following semester. On my SATs I got 1280 (I have no clue how I actually remember that since I never actually needed it since I transfered into college). I was editor of the school news paper and on dance team. I also had a part time job. Wow, I honestly never realized how much I did until I wrote it down just now. I definately felt like I floated through school. Looking back, I guess I was an overachiever.
College I think I was an overahiever in some places but not in others. I got nearly straight As. My GPA would have been better if there wasn’t a huge problem with being in the wrong math class. Two seperate advisors put me in a particular class. I strugged to no end. I ended up failing once and dropping out half way a second time. The third time I talked to someone I found out that all along I was in a class meant for engineering majors, not english. I was extremely mad but at least aced the real class I needed. Spanish was the other class I slipped down to a B a few semesters. Besides that I worked my ass off to me the top of all my classes.
Were you an overachiever in school? Did you ever cheat?