After working long hours on an essay or finally taking the exam you spent hours studying for, the waiting begins. The ominous period between submitting an assignment and receiving feedback and a grade is daunting for some because all the effort they put into the assignment is essentially collected into one singular experience: academic validation.

Our minds are set on the present – what we work on now and how hard we work on it. College students often aren’t thinking about the knowledge gained through studying for exams or researching for essays. Instead, they are thinking about the grade and the gratification that comes along with it. This gratification and validation can act as fuel to our academic drive to succeed.

I love receiving feedback and getting good grades. Seeing the check marks next to the quotes I chose coupled with comments from my professor gives me more happiness than I can describe. Feedback on projects or essays can help a student learn and understand topics which ultimately reinforce these skills to make them into a better student.

Academic validation is a way to drive students to continue doing well and urge them to work harder. Getting A’s and positive feedback on assignments is the one of the best gift college students can receive. Instant gratification flows within a student once they see they got an A on a really tough exam. To students, the A is confirmation that the time spent studying actually paid off. Without it, students may view their work as having little to no meaning.

Conversely, the need for reassurance can also cause adverse effects on college students, resulting in them obsessing over a mere letter that may not have any indication on the knowledge or understanding gained on a subject. It can become draining to wait for a grade to come out and have one’s effort turned into a simple number or letter. Most students with a fear of failure have an even deeper need for academic validation.

The need to be perfect can certainly fuel a student, and striving to improve is often a great mindset for college students to have. However, perfectionism can also create a toxic mindset within a student which causes them to crave the adrenaline rush that an A grants them even more. A student should not place their self-worth in the hands of a grade or the feeling of academic validation. The mental wellbeing of students can be impacted by academic validation due to the high esteemed value that many students place on their grades; they may put their needs aside to study or complete a paper.

The students who work hard simply for a grade and the validation it brings place an unnecessary burden on themselves and seem to forget that developing our knowledge is also a key component of the college experience.

This type of validation should not be a student’s sole purpose for doing the work or going to college all together. Academic validation is a great and rewarding feeling, but it becomes a problem when students begin to obsess over a grade thus creating a toxic mindset with academics. I urge fellow students to use the feeling as motivation, not as a measure of how much you’re worth.

Julia Bragg can be reached at [email protected]