Everyone feels the pressure of the real world looming upon them as college progresses. Even during the summer, signs indicating the future is near are everywhere...This week I sat down and watched Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, purely out of boredom, to be honest. In middle school I read his amazing autobiography, so I thought, why not watch the movie?

Ben Carson is a black neurosurgeon who grew up in Detroit with practically nothing. In his early education, he nearly failed all of his classes, but through his mother's words of encouragement, plenty of academic enrichment and his own efforts, Carson graduated #1 in  his 8th  grade class, #3 in his high school graduating class, attended Yale University for his undergrad, graduated from University of Michigan School of Medicine and is now a top neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.

While I was watching this film, I couldn't help but connect moments in Carson's life to my own, common moments that every college student experiences: the moment Carson decided to become a neurosurgeon, the moment he almost lost his scholarship and saw his entire career flash before his eyes and the moment he got the A he needed to keep that scholarship and his dream alive. 

We all have these moments in our college years that define us, that push us to work harder than we could've ever imagined ourselves working and that direct us towards our future. We have those moments of failure and of success, and sometimes these failures hurt. Nevertheless, you have to believe that they happen for a reason, because they do.

There are so many moments in my own life I look back on when I wanted something so  badly and was denied it: getting cut from my varsity soccer team, not being able to afford my dream school, even failing math my first semester at UMD (that one hurt a lot). The world tells you to be prepared to deal with rejection, but let's face it, you're never completely ready. It hurts, and it may take a while to realize all the good those rejections eventually bring. Had I not failed and repeated math, I would’ve never gotten an A- the second time around (there were tears of happiness). Had I done well in math, I also wouldn't have realized in time that med school just wasn't for me. 

Too much math, science and tears were on the road to becoming a psychiatrist, so I threw that dream out the window and am now shooting for marketing -- a non-math and non-pain-oriented field (#subtweet @ you med school). Before you think I'm some incompetent college student who gives up easily, I want to point out that I know I can do anything I set my mind to. Take med school for instance: if I really  wanted to dedicate the next nine years of my life to preparing for my own psychiatric office, I would, but I choose not to. 

I think that's something a lot of college students wrestle with: the difference between failing and knowing when something isn't for you. Sometimes this is  pretty difficult to decipher, but if you decide it's something you really want and can't go a day without thinking about, just remember a few words Carson's mother always told him: "You can do anything anybody else can do, only you can do it better," (unless you're up against a Maryland grad). Good luck out there.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com.