- Failure
Last year I embarked upon the daunting task of Calculus AB. Now, generally I am not a stellar math student so I knew the class was going to be hard, but what I didn’t anticipate was weekly failure on a test or quiz. The humiliation and embarrassment of being a top student turned failure was more than I thought I could handle. I tried dropping the class and switching to simply auditing it. Neither were a viable option. I was stuck in a hellish endless cycle of failing. So I did the only thing I knew how, I kept going. The scores didn’t necessarily improve, but they weren’t getting worse which meant I was doing something right. I spent an average of 4 hours a day in my calculus classroom working, just trying to keep my head above water. The miraculous thing is that everything worked out. I almost failed the class and I completely failed the practice exam. Strangely enough though, I tested out with my real exam grade. A four. I never have to take math again unless I choose to, but the real thing I took away from the class was that failing will not make the world stop turning. It may feel as though it will, but I learned it really won’t. - Fake It ‘Til You Make It
Everyone has heard this saying. It’s a must for any person who tries to take on way too much. Sometimes I knew I was just going to have a day in which 24 hours was not enough time, but just smile, tell yourself you’re going to get through it, and it’ll work. Going to wake up at six in the morning after going to bed at one? Sure it’ll be fine. Do that reading again that wasn’t comprehended in the late hours of last night...maybe it was the early hours of next morning. Who knows at this point but there’s just a nagging feeling there will be a pop quiz. Just going through the motions seemed to be enough, and after a while they were. If I was dead tired but I got it all done, I didn’t fall behind. It gave me that extra night to study for the hard test, or a block of time to revise the important paper. I smiled until I had a real reason to because grinding out the work produced good results.
3. Group Projects
People can sometimes suck. If we’re being brutally honest that’s the truth. You may end up doing the entire project on your own. To prevent this from happening, picking a good group is key. That’s honestly the basis of what I learned.
4. Balance
I took on a lot in high school and running was definitely my only outlet to keep me sane. While the pressure of racing and doing well sometimes caused it to be more of a burden then a blessing in my life, the physical act of getting up and pounding my feet on the pavement made things better. If I was going to pull crazy long study sessions and days of torturing stress, I knew I still had to be present and there for running. Tuning out the rest of the world for an hour or two actually won’t prevent me from getting things done. It would clarify things and put problems into perspective.
5. Friendships
Some friendships are the “Oh I see you in class and say hello” type while others are closer to the 3AM phone call friend. It’s okay to have multiple types of friendships, it doesn’t need to just be you and your best friends against the world. There’s this great thing called adulthood where some people are actually mature. It’s not worth your time to causally engage and placate those who you don’t want to. Just being polite and cordial is actually fine and no one will be offended if you don’t want to be “besties” with everyone.
