In times of stress and pressure, we often forget that we are not alone. In her book Campus Calm University: The College Student’s 10-Step Blueprint to Stop Stressing & Create a Happy, Purposeful Life, author Maria Pascucci reminds us that we’re not alone. Most students feel stressed. The important thing to remember is that there are ways to deal with stress. Here are her tips, excerpted from the book.

Soul search
Figure out why you want to graduate summa cum laude. Is it because you love learning and want to commit to academic excellence? Is it a personal challenge you want to take on in order to prove to yourself and others that you have what it takes? Have you always been a straight-A student and believe it shapes your identity in the eyes of others or even in your own eyes? Do you want to go to a top graduate school where the cutoff GPA for acceptance is very high?

If your motives are internally driven—if graduating summa cum laude is a goal you really want to achieve for you—then you’re probably going to be less stressed than if you’re constantly thinking, “I have to graduate summa cum laude to please my relatives and prove my worth, and I’m never going to be happy or successful if I don’t ace this next test!”

Never shy away from an interesting class for fear of not getting an A
When I was in college, a professor who taught European history confided to me that one of her students wanted to drop her class right before midterms. Even though this student loved European history, she told the professor that she was struggling and didn’t want to ruin her chances of graduating summa cum laude. The professor said that her student was slated to get an A- in the course by midterm. It’s unfortunate that the student couldn’t enjoy her class—a class she loved and in which she was doing well—just because an A- wasn’t good enough.

If I’ve learned one thing since graduating, it’s that challenging myself to love learning above the almighty grade is a reward all in itself.