I am not a robot, but my friend is. One day, a semi-proud Senior girl, Daisy, goes home to her parents to show them her progress report. She is only semi-proud because she received one “C” amidst her multitude of As and Bs. A “C”! The horror! Her parents decide to talk to the teacher in whose class she received the C. On the morning of progress report conferences, Daisy merely mentions to her friend that her parents are paying a visit to a certain teacher. The friend, Sally, says in a stuck-up and condescending voice, “My parents have never had to go visit my teachers. My grades have never gotten that low.” Daisy purely said this as a statement. She was in no way intending to receive or wanting of a response, especially not a condescending one.

     Although a person may be smarter or have a higher GPA, does that really make her/him better than everyone else? Why do people that receive better grades automatically think that they are better than everyone else? Grades are not everything. Great grades may help in high school and college. But, news flash. They are not as important to people in the real world. The real world is social interactions. Many people that only know how to study and receive great grades are robots. Being able to memorize and spit out information may be well and good in school, but it will get a person nowhere in life. They know that a2 + b2 = c2 and that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. But, do they know how to socialize and talk to people? Short answer: No.

     An average millionaire's college GPA is a 2.9. Why? Because they most likely learned how to socialize and were not worried about only their grades in school. Most valedictorians of schools actually fail in the future after school. In school, they are only worried about grades, grades, and oh grades. They never venture out into the world and actually experience things. Valedictorians like steady and constant jobs. They will most likely settle for an a easy job rather than an exciting, visionary job. The jobs valedictorians mainly do are jobs that a machine can do.  They do not do jobs that are creative and actually need a human mind. So is valedictorian status and smarts really necessary to have a successful career?

     Although being smart and getting good grades in high school is nice, it is not all that matters. A valedictorian is not a better person in general than a person with a low GPA. Grades only show the success of the person in school. Not in life. As Jelaluddin Rumi writes in his poem “Two Kinds of Intelligence”: There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says...one already completed and preserved inside you.” A robot valedictorian is the first kind of intelligence. A social person is the second kind of intelligence. One person is logical, one person is creative. One person is left-brained, one person is right-brained. One person experiences life, one person reads about it. So what kind of person would you rather be?