Transitioning from high school to college is hard. Let me repeat that again. Transitioning from high school to college is hard.

You just moved away from home, your family, your friends, maybe even your pet. You've crammed all of your stuff into a 9x9 cube that you now have to share with a total stranger and let's face it, the dining hall food will never be the same as your mom's homemade spaghetti.

If you're like me, you probably breezed through high school without touching a textbook. You probably averaged an A- or maybe even an A without studying, and you probably thought college would be the same.

Until, you take your first test and there's not a smiley face, awesome job written on it. There's a lot of red ink and a giant 66/100 glaring at you.

Now, I never was a studier. I mean, why would I? I was doing just fine without it, but I knew in my head that college would be a different game and I knew that being a pre-med student, there was and is a lot riding on my perfect 4.0, so in the weeks leading up to this first test, I studied. I read the chapters, I did practice problems, I did all that I could to learn the material. I knew everything from my notes, from the book, from the lecture, there was not a worry in my mind that I wouldn't do nearly perfect on this test.

But I didn't do perfectly. I got a D. A grade that I never thought I would see. A grade that at the end of the semester would turn into a 1.0.

I felt defeated. I felt like I was letting not only myself down, but my family and friends that were cheering me on to get my M.D.

So, I cried. I laid in my boyfriend's bed and I cried and inaudibly told him how I didn't want to be a doctor anymore and I just wanted to drop out. A little dramatic, I know, but coming into college being an above average student, a D was a world shifter.

When I finished my moment of drama, he sat with me realistically. We looked at the syllabus (please read the syllabus), we calculated out grades and what the chance of me bouncing back from this was and it turns out, on the contrary to what I thought, I could still pull out an A if I revised my test taking and studying strategy.

In the end, I realized that getting a D on a test is not the end of the world. It's not even the end of the semester. It's simply just a roadblock, and it's up to you how you get around it. You could sit in your car and wait for someone else to move it, and let me tell you, no one else is going to move it no matter how long you sit there. Or, you could get out of your car, push it out of the way, and keep going. Which is what I plan to do.

So, my one piece of advice that I learned from this experience, don't let one D on your first college test ruin your plans for your future. At the end of the day, it's just a D.