Now that the semester is over and break has begun you can finally relax…hopefully. It’s probable that some you reading this might not be able to relax right now given the fact that grades for the semester have just been released, and some of them may not have been as high as you had hoped. You may have actually have gotten the first F in your life this semester, it’s okay, relax, and take a second to breath. Obviously, I’m not encouraging people not to care about failing a class, you should care, you should care a quite a bit actually. What I will say is this, it’s not the end of the world, you are not a terrible student, you aren’t going to flunk out, and you are not stupid. Trust me, I know stupid; earlier today I saw a door that said pull, double checked that it said pull and then tried to push it open…I have my moments.

The fact of the matter is that now you are in college, regardless of how good of a student you were all throughout high school you can’t compare the two, they are drastically different. Chances are the classes you take in college are a lot more intensive then the ones from high school, there’s a learning curve. And I don’t just mean from high school to college; it also applies from class to class. Eventually you start to learn what your preferences are, what you’re good at, and what you’re not good at. You don’t have to be good at everything. I know it’s probably weird to hear someone telling you that it’s okay to fail now and again, but the important thing is that you learn from your mistakes and you come back stronger than before. I have no problem admitting that I have failed two classes in my time here so far, they were really difficult classes and even though I tried very hard in those classes I still didn’t get the result I wanted from them. So I did what I could, I learned from my mistakes, I retook both courses and I managed to pass them, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible either.

Now if you really tried your best in whatever class it was that you failed and you honestly don’t believe that you could have tried any harder, than I think you need to take a long hard look at why you decided to take that course. If the answer was to get an easy A, I’m sorry to break it to you, but easy A’s in college generally don’t exist. If the class was for your major though, that’s a different story. Personally, after I failed those classes, I looked at why I chose my major and was it something that I really wanted to do, and how that played in to my grades. After I had reaffirmed myself of my choices that’s when I went back for another go at it, but I think the question you need to ask yourself is, is your major that important to you that you want to give it another go, or do you not even want that major in the first place. Is it just something that someone told you would be a good idea and you went along with it? I don’t know you’re life or the dynamics of your family and friends and their impact on you, because unfortunately that can end up playing a big factor in what we choose to study; this won’t apply for everyone, there are so many individual twist and turns that we all face but just remember to relax and breathe. The world hasn’t ended just yet and hopefully this helped in some way. As per usual, if you wanna talk, you know where to find me. Enjoy break while you can because a new semester is just right around the corner!