Registration is one of the most stressful parts of college. “What classes am I supposed to take? What classes are easy? Wait, you mean this class is no longer open? Is this professor easy? I just need a perfect GPA, that’s it.” These are all the thoughts that filled my head while scrolling through my degree plan and course listings. After hours passed, I had finally come up with the perfect schedule, hoping for the best.
When registration time finally came around, I was all set. I had my computer screen split in half. One side was a word document with all the course names and numbers, and the other half was my student portal. The clock flashed two o’clock, and I went full fury, typing fast. Once registration finally concluded, I was pretty content with my schedule, except one part… I was waitlisted for a biology class for non-science majors. I prayed day and night hoping to get into the class. Then, when I finally received the email notifying me that I had gotten in, I was jumping for joy. Now, weeks later into college, I find myself wondering what I was thinking signing up for this class. I heard the class was fairly easy, and it was designed specifically for business, law, and liberal arts students. Therefore, I decided I would give it a try.
As classes began to pick up the pace, I realized that my first round of exams, for my four classes, all fell during the same week. I sat at my desk, with my planner opened up in front of me, wondering how I was possibly going to manage studying for all of them. I tried my best to study day and night for my exams. I studied the lecture notes, looked up videos online, and even went to help sessions for the exams. Then, before I knew it, the dreaded day finally came. It was my first exam out of all four, and it was biology. I finished the exam fairly early, and, while I was walking out of the classroom, I knew that I had either done exceptionally well or terribly bad. I felt it in the gut of my stomach.
Days passed, and I finally received an email saying that my biology exam was graded. I felt an uneasiness in my heart. I wasn’t sure what to expect. When I opened the link, logged into my student portal, and looked up the exam, unfortunately, my grade was the latter. I fell two points short of a passing grade. Sixty-eight. “This had to be a mistake. This couldn’t be right,” I thought to myself. I never failed an exam in high school. In fact, I almost always did exceptionally well on them with very minimal studying. But, the thing is, that wasn’t high school. This is college, and things don’t work like that anymore.
I was too shocked to cry, and I was too numb to be angry. I just sat there, unsure of myself and my potential. But, something interesting happened, something so unexpected. Looking back, I realize that, somehow, I managed to survive.
I wish I could say that I am one of those incredibly intelligent students that come to college and glide right through, but I’m not. I have to study hours and more a day, and sometimes that isn’t even enough. Sometimes, actually often, I question why I am still in this class… why I got “lucky” to get off the waitlist. But, as I sit at my desk typing out this article, I realize that maybe it was to teach me one simple fact: failure is never fatal, and it is never final. In that moment, I felt like my whole world was crashing down. I had studied so hard for that exam, and I didn’t understand what else I could have done. I didn’t think I was cut out for college because it was too hard. I didn’t know how I was going to survive. But, I did. I’m still here, and I’m still trying.
Truly, I think that’s the most important part. Everyone wants to succeed, but not everyone understands that success doesn’t come without failure. Failure is the building block for life. It’s how you learn what you truly want, but, most importantly, it shows you who you are and what you’re made of. Of course I was upset after the exam, that was only natural. Of course I felt a bit broken afterwards, but who wouldn’t be? Of course I wanted to give up, but, the point is that I didn’t. I didn’t crumble like I thought I would. I found a way to pick myself up, dust myself off, and figure it out.
College wouldn’t be college if I didn’t question my decision at least five times a day. College wouldn’t be college if I didn’t doubt my abilities. College wouldn’t be college without these things because of the fact that those things teach me exactly who I am. They bend me, stretch me, and sometimes I tear at the seams, but it’s exactly those moments that teach me what it truly means to be resilient, to be able to bounce back from any failure. No matter how impossible it seems. If I don’t come out of college with a couple scratches and wounds, then I didn’t do my part. One failure doesn’t mean that I will always be a failure or that one mistake dictates who I am, because it doesn’t. What dictates who I am is how I respond and what I decide to do. And, well, I am deciding to keep going…to keep fighting… because coal doesn’t turn into a diamond without a little pressure.
I hope you always remember that.
