I agree Matt, but excuses are a dime a dozen buddy.
I had a wife and one kid at the time
It wasn't about the grades; it was about "positioning" with the instructors. I simply did not accept their methods of stereo typing students with grades. One instructor defined me as..."Oh yeah, McKibbon, you give him a 99% grade and he's still not happy" By my 2nd year my name was branded as top student.
One of my secrets was an after hours teaching class I hosted for my fellow classmates. If you want to learn something really well, teach it.
Lots of stories and life lessons learned.
30 years later, not much has changed