School Is Useless

“The F Students are the inventors.” If you don’t know what I am referencing, there is currently a trend that is resurfacing about how the F students are CEOs destined to be millionaires, while the A students are the ones who will work for the F students. The trend is satirical, evident in the videos that show the “F students” doing things like sticking forks into outlets, or frying their school-owned Chromebook by sticking a piece of lead in it, but this sentiment has been around for a while and something that many people believe in.

This trend made me think deeper into the whole process of school. Let me make it clear, I don’t think school is useless. In my own experience, school has helped me in so many ways. From the people I’ve met, subjects I’ve learned, and experiences I’ve gone through, the environment that I am privileged to be in has helped me grow tremendously in a variety of ways. Now that this is out of the way, in this post, I share my perspective on school, some advice, and my own experiences.

My Thoughts and Experiences

Throughout my time in school, there has always been that lingering, persistent culture of “just finishing the assignment.” This philosophy was still lingering in my head during my freshman year, and because of treating each assignment as just another task to complete, I paid for it in my performances in tests, and eventually the AP Exam.

This outcome led me to a change in my systems and behaviors. I told myself that I didn’t want to be someone that just treated assignments like things to do and get out of the way quickly, but find deeper meaning and purpose in each and every task I did. Instead of skipping the weekly reads in textbooks, I read each chapter knowing that it would provide the fundamental knowledge for the subject. Instead of putting the videos in 2x speed and barely understanding the content, I took it slower and truly processed the content. Each small habit of truly connecting with the content led to the results that I wanted, and furthermore, it taught me the importance of finding purpose in the things that I did.

This culture of treating each assignment as just another task instead of something that is truly useful to do well, I believe is the first reason why some people may find school useless. They do it just to get the results they want, instead of changing the identity and system in which they operate to achieve the results. In that sense, it would make sense that people find each assignment as just busy work, and another thing to just cut corners on.

Now, I am not saying that in order to achieve the results you want in school you HAVE to give each assignment 100% effort—there are plenty of people out there that do just fine not doing that—but for the people that I see struggling to achieve their desired results, they are often the people that fixate on the goal they want reach, as opposed to the identity and system they have to change.

This experience is one of the reasons why I personally disagree with the sentiment that “School is set up so you fail. They don’t educate, they just cram down as much information as you can, and then have you throw it all up on the test.” I believe that people only see it as such, because they make it as such.

I think many teachers share this sentiment, but my math teacher summed it up best with something he made very clear at the beginning of the year. “Folks, I want you to approach this class with the aim to master each of the concepts I teach this year. I guarantee you that if you truly engage and aim to master the concepts as opposed to just learning it for a test, you would find the class not only more enjoyable, but far easier.”

Ever since I started to change the system and identity in which I approach my assignments, my stress levels went down, and my grades became much higher. I mean think about it, for many, the most stressful times during the year that people experience are right before tests, and right as the semester ends. That’s because for many, they would have to spend hours upon hours learning the content they never truly learned in the first place. But I believe that if they had just connected with the content through the assignments, they would have a far easier time reviewing for the test, and excelling in them.

This is a little bit of a tangent, but I had to mention it because I hear used so much to support the idea that school is useless. A lot of people like to point to figures like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates as proof that you don’t need school to succeed. But here’s the thing, they weren’t bad students who got lucky. They were the 1% of the 0.01%, people who had already built something so powerful that school started to slow them down. They didn’t leave school because they hated learning, they left because they had something bigger to learn from. And even then, their success wasn’t magic. Running a company like Microsoft or Meta takes discipline, hard skills, and the ability to learn fast and adapt even faster. And guess where you can develop all of that? School.

The point of school isn’t just grades or diplomas—it’s about building the habits, mindset, and skills that help you become the kind of person who can create something that matters. School gives you the structure to grow, and if you use it right, it can build the foundation for success. And while it does prove that you don't need a degree to succeed, it does prove the important values and skills that are needed to succeed.

Conclusion

In essence, I found that these three things were key to achieving my goals in school and something that I try to apply to everything I do: finding purpose, fixing my system, and shaping my identity. I look at it like growing a plant. If it’s not thriving, I don’t mess around with the leaves, I check the soil, the sunlight, and the water. The plant is only as healthy as the environment it’s rooted in. In the same way that outcomes are a reflection of the conditions I create for myself.

When I found purpose in what I did, I shifted the way I viewed each task—it became meaningful. When I fixed my system, the results started showing in tests and in fluency. And when I focused on identity, I stopped trying to look like a hard worker and actually become one, and making it part of my identity reinforced my habitual system even more. Together, these things changed the way I engage with school, and in turn, they changed my results