Hi everyone 🙂 I'm 13 years old, so I'm currently a Sec 1, studying the International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme.

I have very similar problems- lessons in school are very repetitive and monotonous. I feel like when students "study" (correct me if I'm wrong), they just memorize things (sometimes word-for-word) just to regurgitate it out. I find this kind of rote learning very pointless, but it seems like it's the only way to score in our school exams. The lessons are very boring, and I find it difficult to focus during classes. Somehow even Science lessons are boring. My Language Arts once told us that during exams, we should always stay on the safe side and never write any "creative ideas that haven't be covered in class". She told us to always only write anything that she's covered before, to score good marks (how ironic that one of the "IB-Leaner traits" that they often preach to us is "risk-taker").

So as you would expect, my grades aren't outstanding. Not bad, just not splendid.

Luckily for me, I've found an interest that I'd like to pursue in the future. I love Physics, particularly things like Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, or just general astrophysics. Well, sometimes I just like to think of random paradoxes or wonder about the big questions about the Universe. I like to read books that I get from the library, watch YouTube videos and read interesting articles from online to learn. I also have a group of friends from my old primary school, from the GEP, that I often meet up with, and we like to discuss things as we have similar interests (we also always complain about school whoops). Every time we meet up we talk about a different topic, ranging from quantum computation to time loops.

Point is that I love Physics, and to the extent that I'd really really like to study it when I get to University (in 6 years time). In fact, my dream is to study Physics in MIT (sounds very ambitious, I know, but I have six years to dream haha).

But the thing is that my grades aren't outstanding. And as much as I love Physics, you do need outstanding grades to get into a good University. Especially for a school like MIT (oh my gosh I sound so ambitious and deluded), you'll need to be, like, a top student in the best school in your country.

So my question is – how much, exactly, do my school (secondary school and JC) results affect my future?