[pasbesoin]

One of the smartest people I know -- he now works on the CMS at CERN, and can explain everyone else's work as well as his own -- got kind of crappy grades when we were in college. He was simply interested in other things.

He had a cartoon on his door, at one point. A figure walking down the street in the city. All the signage around him displaying "Lies". I thought it was excessively cynical, at the time. Over the intervening some decades, I've come to understand his point of view.

It's better to understand the system. Then make your own, informed choices. If you like doing something, do it. If you're doing it because someone told you there's an eventual payoff, beware.