Failure has such a negative connotation. When I think of failure it always sounds like the final product...a big fat "F" on the transcript of life. However, as I have gotten older I have learned that failure isn't the end and that it can be a building block to something amazing if you work for it.

First things first: college is hard. You go from this protected and consistent environment that is high school and are immediately thrown into semi-adulthood with no parental guidance except for over the phone. Whatever your situation is in college, whether it is paying for everything and working on top of school, your parents paying for school and other activities because they want you to focus on academics, or if you are somewhere in between, college and life is hard and at some point you are bound to fail at something...and that is OKAY. The important thing is how you pick yourself up and move on from it.

Please, whatever you do DO NOT dwell on it. You are smart, driven, and have the potential to do anything you want, but you cannot hold onto low points. Use your shortcomings as a learning experience and rise above it. I remember when I first failed a class and I cried and cried despite making a 3.0 overall that semester, but I reevaluated what went wrong in that class and retook it and passed. That's the important thing.

Understand that being an adult or semi-adult is a trial and error kind of process and if you find yourself stuck and not knowing what to do now, that it's okay to ask for help. You are not always going to be right. No one ever is and you are a human who is bound to make some mistakes along the way. You have a choice to learn from other people or try to do it on your own. I highly advise you learn from other people, especially your parents (I had to learn that the hard way). Sometimes we have this know-it-all mindset and that is natural because we want to prove that we can do it on our own. However, sometimes we can't and if I had a dollar for every time I went to my mom crying for help (because I was stubborn and waited till I exhausted every other option) I could pay my college tuition, and I learned so much from her and my father.

So, remember growing up isn't always sunshine and roses and things may not always turn out the way you want, but everything is happening the way it is for a reason. If you fall it's okay; that mishap does not define you and will not define the rest of your life. What will define you is how you respond to it and move on. So go be the spectacular human that you are and take on the world because the world needs you.