Let me tell you a story...
about the first time I EVER failed an exam.
I studied a lot in high school. Grades were never an issue for me. I have a tried a true study method. Attend class. Take notes. Go home and read the text book. Make a Quizlet. Pass the test. Easy peasy.
This held true for me during my years at Saint Johns River State College. I breezed through my prerequisites and I write enjoyed studying!
Of course when I transferred the the University of Florida, that study method had to be altered. These upper level courses are all about application, not memorization. So I would do practice questions galore, and make it out of exams okay.
This all changed when I took a certain class. I'm not going to disclose the class name, because honestly its embarrassing. It is probably my least favorite class ever. I even like Business Law better than said class. So here I am, watching the lectures, reading the textbook, making Quizlets and doing practice questions. Come exam day, I felt fine.
So I took the exam and it didn't feel different than any other. A week later I got my score back: 53%. Impossible. I was shocked and annoyed and confused. I personally felt like I had done everything I could.
For a while, I made excuses. Blamed my performance on distractions in my apartment, my professor, ProctorU. I even emailed my professor to make sure she hadn't made a mistake. Nope. I simply failed.
After going through the stages of grief, I finally reached acceptance. I had no one to blame but myself. I learned some practical lessons from this experience. First of all, I can't treat all classes the same. Some classes apply their teachings differently, and I need to cater my studying technique to each class individually. Secondly, you can't be good at everything. I feel like its the universes way of humbling and reminding me that not all things in life are easy, and nothing is predictable, and that's okay.
This class has definitely shed a lot of light on celebrating failure. Just to create a minuscule product, you have to go through hundreds of opinions and a lot of people are going to criticize you. Sometimes you even start a business that fails. You can't let these failures become a roadblock in your life that inhibit you from pursuing any other goals. Rather, let it fuel you to try again, this time even stronger.
Now I can feel a little edgy knowing I failed an exam.
Hi, Holly! Great job on your 'celebrating failure' assignment! I'm so sorry to hear about this exam that you took, but what can I say? It happens to the best of us! Lol. Also, I loved the fact at the end when you wrote, 'Now I can feel a little edgy knowing I failed an exam' because I really felt that on a personal level. We can only learn from our mistakes! Great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Holly,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing a time you have failed. I too, made by discussion post about failing an exam. It shed light to how I needed to approach new study methods that could help me succeed in this class.
Hi Holly,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience! I am also a transfer student and I can relate to having to adjust your study habits to meet the demands of UF. I agree with your outlook that sometimes you cannot be great at everything and sometimes the more you succeed, the harder it is to accept failure. Failure, however, is a part of life and any entrepreneur would tell you that they failed many times before they reached what they would call success.
Karla
Holly,
ReplyDeleteGreat job baring it all and sharing an embarrassing failure story. I can relate to this post a lot because I also haven't had much of an issue with exams until college. And it's not like I necessarily have an issue with them now, but I definitely had to change up my study method a bit. I agree that it's very humbling to fail and it's a great learning experience.
Hey Holly,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I just thought it was cool that you said you transferred into UF because that's what I did too! I like that you mentioned you had to switch up your study method because it is so true, UF really is much different than high school or even other colleges and studying isn't so easy. I'm glad that you finally got that exam failure out of the way because it makes it a little less stressful any time you take an exam in the future.
Hello Holly! Failing an exam in college can be one of the most hurtful things to happen to college students. We spend all of our time studying and next thing you know we still end failing. I agree with your two points that every college class is different and that we all need to understand the really that we can't be good at everything, which is okay.
ReplyDelete