College Fears: Academic Failure

Everyone is quick to tell you that college is “the best years of your life,” but it seems that no one is willing to tell you that it can be scary as hell.

You get ripped from the comfort of Mom’s bosom with no guide except the crap you watched on MTV and life lessons you learned at the bus stop and now you’re supposed to figure out who you are, who you want to be and what you want to do with the rest of your life. It’s exhilarating and liberating and tiring and frightening all at the same time. It’s college and you are not alone.

The GainesvilleScene series “College Fears” aims to delve into these unspoken fears.  You might laugh, you might cry.

Hell, you might even realize we feel the same way about shit that you do.

Academic Failure

1. I failed chem 1 my first semester of college by one single question on the final. I thought my world was over. I felt like a complete and utter failure. I’d worked so hard in high school just so I could be admitted to and attend the University of Florida. I felt like I had let myself and, worse, my parents down. When I told them, I thought I was going to get a speech about partying too much, or how this isn’t why they sent me away to school. Instead, I got, “So? You think we know how to fucking do chemistry?” They were right. Even though I didn’t pass the class by the school’s standard, I still learned a lot and realized how few people in the world know anything about Stoichiometry. (It’s fun shit.) I retook it the next semester and got an A without ever studying.

2. Freshman me thought dropping a class was like giving up before really trying. Like half-assing or taking the easy way out. When I took pre-calc my freshman fall, my inevitable failing exam grades due to: lack of trying, lack of attendance and lack of care for anything math-related should have been a huge red flag. Halfway through the semester, my outlook was bleak, and instead of meeting with an advisor to understand the benefits of dropping a class, I chose to hire a shitty tutor (I thought Study Edge was a cult, was I that stupid?) and trudge through equations and exponents. By the time I took my final exam, the nail hit the coffin. I managed to get my grade to a high C, but failed the final so miserably I was one point away from passing. I felt like a total reject. I cried to my parents, who blamed my excessive partying (true) and failure to see the big picture. I thought about their last comment, and they were right. If I reasonably perused through my options I should have dropped the class, or better yet, gotten a legitimate study-aid. I re-took the class the following semester and got an A without trying (and Study Edge), but I learned my lesson. Ask for help when you need it and be blunt with your skill-set. I will never be a mathematician, but the fuck do I care? I’m on track to graduate and still have a killer GPA. So screw you, pre-calc.

3. I got a C in a basic chemistry class and that nearly killed me. For me, being average was failing. I wasn’t connecting with this material, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t be better than average. And then I realized that there’s no shame in that. I’m a writer, not a chemist. What the hell do I need to know about the proper formulas for ionic compounds?

4. I don’t agree with Albert Einstein that,”everybody is a genius,” not in the traditional sense of that word, anyway. But the rest of that infamous quote rings true, and I try to live my life by it: “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

5. Never did I take into consideration the subjective nature of a creative major. I did so without taking into consideration that my grades would be based off subjective criteria liberally thought up by an independent human being with distinct preferences. (My major begins with a “j” and ends in “ournalism.”) Not only was the grading on my performance somewhat unpredictable, but it also was a direct determinant of my self-esteem on that given day. When I got a bad grade, it dragged down my grade point average and stabbed me in the heart, making me feel like an untalented, idiotic hack.  The amount of times I asked myself, “Am I aggressively mediocre? Should I switch  majors? Is Cafe Risqué hiring?” is innumerable. But with my graduation day fast approaching, I’m glad I had faith and didn’t become a zombie accountant.

6. The impending doom of  academic failure can be debilitating. It’s easy to give in and give up. I almost let it happen to this year — my senior year i.e. make it or break it time — but eventually forced myself to mentally segue from despair to “sink or swim.”  If you stop making failure an option (“Whatever. I’ll just drop/withdraw and take it online/next semester”), your actions will match your thoughts. I know I sound like a fortune cookie, but seriously: Failing carelessly isn’t a good look, and you’re better than that.

7. I took “What Is The Good Life?” my first semester of college, and found out about halfway through that I was failing the course due to (lack of) attendance. I decided to use one of my two drops (I’ve now exceeded the limit and successfully appealed for a third… I’m really bad at going to class) withdraw before my GPA was negatively affected. As a junior, I am taking the course for the second time, struggling to scrape by with a C because I forgot to go to class the entire first half of the semester (lesson obviously not learned). It’s really kind of sad, because this is quite possibly the easiest course at UF, if you show up. The point to be noted here is that it’s important to take all of your courses somewhat seriously, or at least attend all of them most of the time.

8. When I started at UF, I found that a B, although not ideal, was acceptable as long as I gave 100 percent. Summer A came around, the first semester after the end of my freshman year. I decide to take economics solo, so I could focus all of my attention. The plan wasn’t as smart as I originally thought. Instead of three exams, we’d have two, about 30 questions a piece. A little over 60 questions would determine my grade. After receiving a D on my first exam and doing a great deal of crying, I found that for the first time ever,  I would not be getting an A or even a B in a class.  I got my first and only C in my entire life, in a class completely unrelated to my major. But in the end, you can only give so much to a class, and when even your best isn’t enough, pick yourself up and move on to the next thing. I won’t say Cs get degrees, but I will say killing yourself over something unattainable will not earn you a degree,  either.

9. High school was incredibly easy for me and I never really learned how to study. Coming to UF was a huge wake up call. I failed my first exam in chem 1, which my parents weren’t thrilled about. Considering I had never really done anything bad in my lifetime (that they know of), they were okay with it. Round two of Chem 1 came  around the following Fall semester, and I completely blew it off. Never went to the lab. Barely watched lectures. It was the perfect formula for failing a class completely. And this time, I didn’t tell my parents, but that meant selling my plasma to scrape enough money together to pay Bright Futures for the course. Third time turned out to be the charm; I got an A in the class by actually applying myself. Chem 1 has not defined me as a person, but it’s really defined my GPA. Lesson learned: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. If you still can’t succeed, change your major.

10. By the grace of some holy god, I’ve yet to fail a class. That being said, I’ve used my drops very generously. Word of advice from someone with a year of classes and zero drops left: If you find yourself complete and utterly lost/worried/confused the first week of classes, drop it like it’s hot. It doesn’t get easier.

11. I consistently set myself up for complete academic failure. Every semester starts with a solid week of consistent reading and studying but eventually devolves into an unproductive bender punctuated by all-night amphetamine-fueled study binges. And every semester, like most movies starring Tom Cruise, comes to a conclusion with a miraculous deus ex machina. This saves me from having to explain to my parents why the money they keep depositing into my bank account continues to vanish (I’ve been getting by with “Study Edge” for a while now, and I don’t plan to stop any time soon). So my academic advice is to stand up to adversity and find it in yourself to get extremely lucky every semester.

12. Take “Age of Dinosaurs,” they said. It’s easy, they said. No. “Age of Dinosaurs” was not easy. “Age of Dinosaurs” was the bane of my existence. I thought it would be cake. Just memorize a few facts, look at cool pictures, maybe even stumble upon a few completed study guides on the Internet, right? No. I got a D on the first practice exam…the open book, open note, open Google exam. I’m no math major, but I assumed the odds were not in my favor when it came time to take the actual test. So I did what any self-respecting college sophomore (at the time) would do: I called my dad crying. He said I could drop it. To this day, my roommates have not let me live it down.

Did we miss anything? Do you agree or disagree with our reactions to failure? Share your thoughts below. 

Feature photo courtesy of: Northwestern Flipside

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