Probably the best part of having professors that actually worked in the field they are teaching is that they’ll tell you exactly what you need to know.

There’s no need to memorize textbook terms without hearing a real life example to put each definition into perspective.

They keep the useless information at a minimum and more than likely don’t assign pointless, extensive assignments for the sole purpose of not actually having to read and grade them.

All of these professors will be the first to tell you that experience is the key to success in any field.

But, telling us grades don’t matter at all is an exaggeration and demotivates students that really want to study hard.

If our professors are telling us GPAs won’t make a difference anyway, what’s the point in putting in all the effort, energy and sleepless nights? Why strive to be the best if mediocre is just as good?

We do get it. Grades are only numbers. Actually learning and retaining information and skills is the most important thing we can do as college students.

When we’re out in the field representing clients, curing people or even managing family businesses, a textbook can’t tell us how to work.

It won’t tell us how to actually do our taxes, manage employee relationships or be innovative.

But, having the strength to persevere and strive to be better in school is only the start to never settling for minimum effort in any career we choose.

If we can’t succeed with a textbook in front of us, how can we be expected to succeed when we’re actually thrown into one of those seemingly ridiculous scenarios we read in the textbook?

It’s true that GPA alone won’t matter when we’re in a room full of job applicants. We’ll all be college graduates with the same degree in hand, wiping a nervous sweat from our brow as we apply for jobs we know we aren’t qualified for yet.

But, the grades we make give us opportunities now that will matter later. They’ll get us memberships in honor societies and build our reputation as hard workers. We’ll have the opportunity to go places, do things and get the experience employers look for because we earned it.

Our GPA will tell the professors, parents, mentors and even our possible employer that we are worth the time and effort people put into our learning.

At our first job interview, the somewhat intimidating person determining if we have a job or not will only look at us and smile. They’ll skim past our GPA, barely giving it a second glance, and jump right into involvement and job experience.

Maybe the number itself won’t matter, but all the things we were able to do because of it will.

Religion can be spoken about freely, yet we tread softly when publically mentioning it.

But, the hardest idea to grasp is that having the right to spread religious awareness is certainly not the same as pushing beliefs on others.

While people reserve the right to practice religious freedom and to speak without restraint about any faith they choose, forcing others to listen isn’t freedom of speech; it’s harassment.

There are over 127 major religions and seven billion people on earth with seven billion different views of God. Some love Him, some fear Him, some question His existence and some are still searching for Him.

Some will decide that God plays no role in the trials and tribulations of life, while others will find faith the moment they see their newborn child take the first breath of being.

Whether we discover where we spiritually belong in a pew on Sunday morning or on a lonely drive with no destination, the journey to finding or forgetting God is what determines our views. We can’t be told what and who to believe in, or to even believe in anything at all.

What we learn, who we meet and the challenges we face are what we remember when we stand before Him, not the church members that knock on our front doors, or the people that stand in the quad condemning us all to hell.

And if the church goer at your front door changes your perspective, let them. Be baptized in one church, change your mind, and be baptized in another. Let what you learned in biology class make you question evolution and the powers above.

Learning from life experiences and questioning God’s ways isn’t sin; it’s human. It’s human to change emotionally, mentally, and spiritually when physical surroundings change. It’s human to simply be curious and indecisive.

Faith only exists because there are people that believe strongly enough in it to make it a reality and a way of life. Without doubters and differences, the strength of religion would never have anything to be measured against.

Because of that, religion without true belief is weak.

Never practice out of habit, don’t follow just because your parents or friends do, and don’t ever think one religion is superior to another. In a time that seems to have the explanation for everything in a test tube or on a database, people believing in any God at all is a miracle in itself.