December 2004

Alex Suha • The Bottom Line

I’m old. High school two years ago is like the memory of a nursery. It seems as if I’ve been a student all my life, and in all that time, I told myself that I COULD get straight As—if I wanted to. In honor of that pledge, I decided to get straight As this semester.

With a couple exceptions, my student experience for the past 15 years seems to indicate that learning isn’t as important as passing tests. I’ve always gone into exams thinking, “Time to use what I know, what I’ve learned.” And I have learned a lot, but that doesn’t seem to be the goal. I’m realizing that examinations are really hurdles. You gather yourself up for one leap, one big effort, to get over the obstacle—and then you forget about it until you face the next one.

That’s why kids cram—for As. I study a little throughout the semester, and that’s why I get Bs. By learning at my own pace instead of frantically stuffing my brain with facts at the last minute, I get grades that are just OK.

My accounting class has helped me figure out how to get those elusive high marks. I don’t think I’m the accountant type, but what I’ve learned from my class is interesting. If you need to save money, accounting very clearly shows you how, and from where. Simple arithmetic says that if you change one number here, another one later on will change. And that can be as simple as spaghetti at home instead of dinner at Wendy’s.

Now that I want As, I simply have to adjust the number of hours of studying the night before a test. Unlike the many students who “got an A and didn’t learn a thing,” I’ll have the top grade to back up all the stuff I learned earlier in the semester.

Evidently, the bottom line (in life, as in my accounting class) is this: it’s all about the numbers. And only time will tell if I’m making a good investment.

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