Even the Best Have Difficulties

Abstract

To achieve top scores, students need not only talents and study skills but also they have to conquer various adversities successfully. This research focused on the study paths, the concept adopted from Hickman, Bartholomew, Mathwig, and Heinrich (2008), of Finnish straight-A graduates in general upper secondary education. In this article, we refer to these paths with the concepts of study processes or just studies. The purpose was to analyze what kinds of difficulties these graduates had faced and how they coped with them. Researchers gathered data from 14 Finnish straight-A graduates by mailing a request to write an essay and by interviewing them. The results showed how the graduates’ core difficulties were related to their peer relationships because of the gifted students’ standing out from the crowd, pressure set by their own ambition, and the burden of wide-ranging interests. The graduates seemed to employ resource-oriented solutions when coping with adversities and difficulties—in this study, the solutions were divided into three dimensions. Based on the results, it is relevant to ask whether schools could support gifted students better by allowing mistakes and failures and supporting students to confront adversities by providing models and tools for survival. It is important to emphasize that failures and adversities are not a sign of weakness.