I lived that perspective roughly from high school through sophomore year in University… after sophomore year I took a different view: “I am good enough, regardless of what arbitrary ratings these sad little men put on my transcripts.”

My reality is: I got a teaching assistantship - the D I received in Calc II didn’t weigh on that decision one iota - in contradiction of the admonishments of several “advisors” I was required to see while selecting course schedules for the coming semesters; then, I got a good job out of school and nobody ever read my transcripts to see that I had a 3.45 GPA undergrad and a 3.75 GPA in grad school. Nobody outside my review committee ever looked at my Masters’ Thesis, and I think one of them never really read the whole thing.

Once I “let go” about grades and ratings and all that bullshit, I got another C in Statistics I from a sad little man whose “son hates him too, like me.” Any amount of stressing about that grade and my performance in the class would not have changed the outcome - we were an Honors class of 3.3 GPAs and up, many 3.9s and up in there, and he gave all but one of us C or lower. Elsewhere - and overall - I believe I performed better academically due to not stressing about it.

The parking gestapo started patrolling a week earlier than their announced end of “free parking for summer” period and wrote me a ticket, I appealed, they denied, I decided to see where this led without me paying. For a $20 fine, they sent me about 100 collection letters (postage far higher than $0.20 on each one) over the following years, and told me that “my transcripts are FROZEN and will not be released to anyone until the fine is paid.” Welp, here we are, 40ish years later, and nobody has denied me employment or promotion or any other thing because they can’t get a copy of my transcripts. One new employer 12 years after graduation asked me for a copy “to have on file” and I gave them an earlier copy I had pulled before the parking ticket, didn’t show degree conferred, they didn’t care - gave me Masters’ degree pay rate anyway. Nobody else, anywhere at any of the dozen employers I have had in the last 40 years, ever asked me for transcripts or other proof of my education.

By the time you’ve had something impact your quality of life for 10 years, that is an impact to your entire quality of life. If the University actually expells you over an AI infraction, my take is that they probably wanted to expell you for other reasons already, and your academic career at that institution would have been an unpleasant uphill battle even without the AI flap.

One other thing I learned during my Teaching Assistantship: a couple of my students were demonstrating absolutely zero understanding of the material being taught and making zero effort to improve their understanding, resisting my offers to help. I gave them a failing grade. My advisor was called to the Dean’s office, when he returned he sat me down for a lesson: “These are paying customers, if they show up to class they get at least a C.” I suspect that is true of almost every private university in the world.