Academic Success as a Path to a Promising Future

            Education is the backbone of the country. Since the era of our founding fathers up to now, the era of Joko Widodo, education is one of the government’s main concerns. It is believed that education offers the hope of academic betterment for Indonesia’s youth, who will lead the country later in the future. Many programs have been established to support the goal: for instance, Wajib Belajar 9 Tahun and now the government passes the baton to the newly set up Wajib Belajar 12 Tahun program. These programs oblige the youth to take a set of complete steps of studies which comprises of primary school, secondary school, and high school. The sole purpose of these programs is no other than to educate students, so they can achieve such academic success. In Indonesian context, the common stereotype is that academic success is merely measured based on the perfect scores on school reports or high GPA in every semester. Nonetheless, even if the students can pull off to get and maintain good grades on report, oftentimes they cannot succeed to get a job or to survive in the harsh workplaces—and many people then lay the blame on the students’ lack of social skills such as communication, confidence, curiosity, and perseverance. These circumstances have raised a doubt that academic success is not necessarily needed to promise the youths a bright future. Students actually should prioritize their academic success rather than social skills because it leads to better way of thinking and future employments.

First, achieving academic success is crucial for shaping how the students think. On the surface, academic success might seem to be assessed only based on the numbers; however, it is actually more than that. Academic success covers more on the process of how the students get the good grades—their struggle and perseverance throughout 12-year of study. To illustrate this point, imagine high school students majoring in science. In three years, they will be taught mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, Indonesian, and English. The activity of studying many subjects simultaneously helps adjust their brain to think systematically and to learn efficiently; and they can find their own learning methods which may vary depending on their interest e.g. audio, visual, audio-visual, etc. Due to the numbers of assignments given in a day and limited period of time, moreover, they will find their own tailor-made methods of working it efficiently; either by doing it individually or working with friends in a study group. This way, students will be accustomed to working smarter, not harder.

Second, the academic success is a path leading to better employments. To employers, good academic performance is one of vital factors they look after. Academic performance reports hold an important role because it displays a great deal of information of how serious the students are in school. Good grades are ample evidence that the students are determined and hardworking; conversely, average grades are unacceptable as they indicate a poor level of knowledge acquisition. When the students can keep up their determination to get good grades, the good results will consequently follow. In Indonesia, for example, good grades are included in the requirements of enrolments to higher degree of education e.g. SNMPTN (Seleksi Nasional Masuk Perguruan Negeri). When students are enrolled in a top-notch university, the chance of getting prestigious jobs when they graduate is much bigger.

Some people may claim that academic success is less important than social skills because there is a presupposition that good scores cannot guarantee that they will succeed in working; and that professional workplaces greatly prioritize social skills which smart students presumably lack. However, if we think wisely, many good personality traits and social skills are actually growing linearly along the academic success. Students who have survived harsh academic lives (e.g. facing competitive classroom environment and demanding teachers) are more likely to be mentally stronger and highly adaptable in workplaces. In college life for instance, there are many demanding lecturers who push the students to the limit in working their papers; they will not be satisfied and will always criticize the students' work until it is done as perfectly as possible. The students need to face harsh comments, and eventually they will be able to withstand it. If the students take it positively, the best possible outcome is that they will be invulnerable individuals—and this is very advantageous as later in the workplaces there are many frustrating problems such as deadlines, critical employers, and challenging customers. They may fail sometimes, but they are going to stand strong and keep trying.

People also argue that smart people lack communicative skill and unsociable because they seemingly spend their time studying without communicating with others; however, the idea is nonsensical. The fact is that throughout their studies, students have done presentations of their work many times; carried out umpteen times of discussions; and undertaken many tasks and projects in groups consisting different types of people. Communicating with different types of people also requires a great deal of effort e.g. some people are very delicate to talk to, whereas others are difficult to deal with. Hence, to get their assignments done on time, they should try hard to bear with it so they can cooperate with others. Through these activities, their communication and teamwork skills are trained time after time. After seeing these advantages, it is hardly possible that the academic success does not bring the students a great future ahead.

All in all, with these stated arguments, the idea saying that academic success is less important than social skills is very questionable. Academic success is surely a promising factor to get a bright future. It shapes how the students think and act, and also builds their good characters. Therefore, it is imperative that students prioritize their academic success to succeed in the near future.