Failure: the Birth of Success by Amy

Failure: the Birth of Success by Amy - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

My mother was right my eighth grade year. Mothers tend to have some uncanny knack for being correct, whether by nature or nurture, I will never know. What I do know is the constant tugging at the corner of my mind like a puppy with a discarded shoe that my mother just senses things I cannot begin to perceive; she is a seismograph for my personal imbalance. I wish I could have discerned this my eighth grade year. Then again, I doubt I would trade my failure down the road for an easier track, as most often the most potent bouquet wafts from the bloom of adversity.

Seventh grade year I was pulled from my sixth period pre-Algebra class and told I had been chosen for the school’s accelerated high school program, which meant I would have one period each day in high school biology during my eighth grade year. I was overjoyed and my ego fluffed. My mother, however, used her maternal insight to tell me I was not yet ready to take on the work load and study habits of a high school honors class. I had never studied before in my life, and I presumed I never would have to. My ego was too strong to believe anything would ever truly test my intelligence, and I survived on my poor work ethic and pride for much longer than I should have been granted.

The beginning of my sophomore year, I was placed in an accelerated Physics class stuffed to the brim with only the best and the brightest students in the school, and due to my desk’s proximity to these individuals, I assumed I was one of them. However, test grades soon exposed a gaping chasm between us. I was constantly flipping test after test over to discover blatant Cs branded into the corner of my tests. Occasionally, I would turn over a B; likewise, I become familiar with failing grades for the first time in my life. The pressure in comparing these stars with me began to mount, and test day birthed anxiety. Then, every night, I would stare blankly at a textbook in utter confusion: too proud to ask for help, too proud to admit any weakness.

This went on for an entire semester until we all reached the dreaded day of midterms. Our tests were 75 questions long with two hours allotted for completion time, less than two minutes per question. I had yet to learn to study at this point, and likewise, I did not possess the slightest clue on how to study the material. My hands sweat when she passed out the exams, and I sent up a silent prayer in hopes just to grip my pencil. Four questions in, after searching every cavern of my brain, I could not for the life of me find the formula I needed. The room swam. I searched for a spot to focus on in order to gain my composure, but before I could, the desk greeted my head with a thump. The rest was black.

I awoke to the principal, the school nurse, the resource officer, my Physics instructor, and ten pupil’s wide eyes incredulously mulling over my drained face. They thought I had died, and part of me wish I had; I still had 72 questions left to finish on my exam. I was wheeled to different room and told to eat some fruit snacks and wait. My diagnosis: extreme fatigue and test anxiety. I finished the semester with my first C.

Upon receiving my report card, whatever part of my ego which remained intact was shattered. My mother had been right two years earlier when telling me I was not quite ready to be a real student, but I had to learn that the hard way. Now, I would succeed in that class if it killed me, even though it previously had come close.

I began by teaching myself to study. I asked my classmates as many questions as I could, and I stopped to see my instructor during as many free periods as were offered. When the year was over, I emerged with not only an A; I was the highest scoring student of the second semester. I had done it!

I owe every academic success since then to that monumental failure. I learned how to study because of that event; I learned what to ask and when to ask it; and most importantly, I learned a strong lesson in humility. When thinking about the course that led me to that class, I originally dreamt of redoing it for the sake of my grade point average, but now I see how much success that failure has brought me.