My grade doesn’t stop me

Thinking of sharing something but hesitate if you can do it? Do read my first article in Medium and hope that it helps you to decide to proceed.

The first English storybook that I read and complete was “The Lord of the Rings” in 2001. The movie inspired me to read the entire book, and I complete it within a month. While this might not sound impressive, this is definitively an accomplishment for me.

When I was much younger, I used to read lots of books in Traditional Chinese. Thus, I excel in my Chinese, but English was quite the opposite. While taking my Cambridge GCE ‘O’ Level, I got an A1 for my Chinese while having a D7 for my English. D7 is officially a sub-pass or failure grade, earning a score between 45–49 in that particular subject.

Having this score means that I have lots of limitation on my future path. Firstly, the option that was available to me then was Engineering path in a Polytechnic. They accept a minimum of ‘D7' in English and fortunately my total aggregate score for the rest of the subjects enable me to enrol into an Engineering course.

There was a time where I thought of enrolling myself as a cadet pilot of Singapore Airlines, putting up my application via the online form. When I was filling up the academic details, I could not proceed further as the minimum requirement was a ‘C6' in the English Language. More recently, I saw that the minimum criteria for enrolling into the Advanced Certificate in Learning & Performance (ACLP) was a ‘C6'. Nevertheless, I will still give it a try and put up my application.

The question is “Do you allow yourself to get blocked from proceeding further by your past grade?”

Let’s fast forward 29 years from the year that I took my GCE ‘O’ Level. I wrote technical proposals for tender submission, wrote various articles to share my LinkedIn ideas, frequently posted on LinkedIn, involved in exchanged with foreign delegates around the World in my various past appointments and conducted seminars using English.

A ‘D7' grade in English doesn’t stop me from using the language to express myself verbally and articulate my thoughts in writings. I am improving myself as I use the language more and write more. It is still not perfect, and I am using tools such as Grammarly when writing. However, it is much better than 29 years ago. If I choose not to do anything to it, I will be standing at that exact point where I paused.

If you think of writing but hesitated to start something, just get started and write what comes to your mind. If you are a native speaker or getting a better grade than me, you can do a much better job for sure.

I wish that my first article in Medium inspires you to start writing, start expressing yourself, and share your ideas with the community.