Why Do "C" Students Still Succeed?

Only the smart students will succeed in life. Many will not argue with this statement. However, most will overlook the fact that being smart and making good grades does not necessarily mean the same thing.

In school, we are typically rewarded with grades that in turn are used to rank students in accordance with how smart they are and to differentiate between students who will make something of themselves and those that won't. The only problem is that grades do not necessarily correlate with success in the real world.

The two types of students

There are two types of students that make up our schools:

1)   Those that follow orders

2)   Those that don’t care about orders

Typically, one gets good grades by studying and analyzing the class A LOT! But what about those students that just do what the teacher says… nothing more and nothing less? Those students that chose to fill their free time with activities that are unrelated to the class, such as sports, working a job, writing books or blogging, painting, etc.?

Do they not want to do well in the class? Do they not care about their future? Are they lazy? No…they just see the world differently.

The view of a C Student

The mind of most C students typically operates like this when they receive an assignment

• Student receives an assignment.
• They glance over it to identify the requirements and due date.
• Once analyzed, they plan how to fit the assignment into their life and how to turn it in on time (usually rushing to finish it at the last minute)
• The may start on it early but end up sitting it to the side because something more important has taken priority (they keep the deadline in their mind)
• The deadline is approaching and they sit down and complete the assignment in a short period of time.
• They read over it, turn it in, and receive a C. 

Students that get good grades treat assignments with care and diligently complete them over a long period of time and in exactly the way the teacher wants them to. On the other hand, C students see assignments as problems.

Wait… Are you saying that these students don’t want to do the work? No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is that C students approach their assignments as problems they must solve while solving for the many other things in their life that they also view as problems (extracurricular activities, work, etc.). Essentially, they find a way to make it work.

Why C students still succeed in real life

C students succeed because the real world rewards them for solving problems as opposed to scoring well on a test.

In the real world, employers have problems that they need to be solved and employ others to solve them. On average, those that got good grades will be better at a specific topic than those that got C's. They typically will get the specialty jobs.

On the other hand, those that got C’s will be better at managing multiple problems at the same time. These individuals do well completing projects and often times end up in manager roles. In other words, this is the reason "A" students end up working for "C" students.