Balancing Studying and Social Life
By Allyson Chiu
Hi! My name is Allyson; I am a rising junior and I am passionate about biology and entrepreneurship!
Both my parents are Chinese; I was born and raised in an Asian household with very high expectations. For school, I have always attended private school: Stratford for elementary and middle school and currently, Valley Christian for high school. Throughout my whole life, studying was my sole priority. This was enforced on me from my mother. First off, I would like to thank my mother for making me into a hard worker, as I would like to believe. In elementary school, she would follow whatever I was learning, read my textbooks, create quizzes, and make sure I attain those As. Although I cried many times and I was quite traumatized about getting lower than an A, let’s just say that has stuck with me all the way to high school.
After harsh times of receiving grades lower than an A, I learned at the end of middle school that it is useless to cry over a grade. Crying will do nothing to improve your grade; it is merely a waste of energy and time
“Do something about it. Ask the teacher what you could do to improve, what was wrong with your thought process, is there a correction policy”
Crying is not worth it. Luckily, after a few arguments with my mom, she has agreed to stop following me on what I am learning at school. This started during my freshman year of high school. Since then, I became really proud of myself that I was able to get the grades that I got without the help of my mom or any outside tutor.
So how does this affect my social life, you may ask? Well, since my mom was very concerned about my education, I never really got to hang out with my friends from school. This was both a blessing and a curse because truthfully, I do not have many close friends I would like to hang out with. But, I also have to assure my mom that I did study for my upcoming test and that me hanging out will not affect my grades. I have learned that having a small friend group and a small circle of people you know you can trust your life with is better than any big friend group with drama. Even though this was hard for me to learn, I think I finally accepted this. Yeah, I really don’t have many friends but I am happy with the people who are my friends and I don’t get asked to hang out a lot.
But, I understand that I have priorities that I have set for myself and that will not come as an expense for my friendships.
So here is my advice to you:
Set up your priorities and write them down. This will make you think about them every day and you will be able follow them.
If a friend or friend group constantly believes that their problems should be your priority over the goals you have written down, please, please, please, reconsider this friendship. If they really did understand your goals and root for you, they wouldn’t want to prevent you from reaching your goals.
Lastly, even after all this, do not be too hard on yourself. You are your biggest enemy so stop putting yourself down for things you cannot control. Instead of putting yourself down, “Be gritty and antifragile!” like my business teacher has always said!
Your goal is your goal. Do not let anything stop you from reaching it.