Derek Bok Quotes

You may be in a medical or engineering college, but not all will stand first in class. It depends on who studies the most.

I went to Columbia University because I knew I wanted to go to a school that was academically rigorous. I prided myself on getting good grades, but I also hated it.

All of the great big men went to college at least two or three years. I think it's a big factor. I don't know if it will always work, but I think it's the best choice.

My concentration was really on getting to university and becoming a doctor. My parents let me know that school marks were important. Achievement was something which came by hard work.

Luckily, I was blessed to go to Stanford and a school that was primarily focused on academics, so it was a blessing.

I turned down a scholarship to Yale. The problem with college is that there's a tendency to mistake preparation for productivity. You can prepare all you want, but if you never roll the dice you'll never be successful.

I loved tests because it was another form of competing, a healthy competition.

I was the first in my family to go to college.

I was packing to go to Columbia University, and they told me that weekend that I got the 'Pitch Perfect.'

I studied at Carnegie Mellon. I went there with a bunch of really, really talented kids.

I figure if you're going to go to class, you might as well make an A.

By the time I got to George Washington University, I had been a straight-A student in high school.

I was probably the first kid in my high school to go to Yale. I applied almost as a lark. Then, when I got there, I was the dumbest person in your class.

The first dream I had was just to get a college education. I got through college in three years, taking extra classes in summer school.

Your work is first, learning is first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.

I thought about going to NYU film school - that was this ideal to me. But I didn't make any kind of grades in high school.

I got into the Shanghai Drama Institute because my parents, like all parents, want their children to have good grades and to go to a good college. I became a college student because of them.

The scramble to get into college is going to be so terrible in the next few years that students are going to put up with almost anything, even an education.

How you do in school determines how you do in life.

I wrote down the grades I wanted in every class.

It never even crossed my mind I wouldn't go to college.

Now that I'm a XXL Freshman, you know, I feel like that sets high standards for me, and I feel like I have to deliver.

One of my best friends got recruited to go to Miami, and another one went to South Florida. You're talking about two big schools in Florida, and I had to go all the way up to Buffalo. I was like, 'OK, I have to put in some more work.' That's just the way it has been ever since.

I've never been bothered about being the highest wicket-taker in the world or the best South African bowler in the world.

I got good grades. I played sports.