You Will Survive! by Hayley

You Will Survive! by Hayley - September 2017 Scholarship Essay

Most students think of elective as fun classes to offset their rigorous degree curriculum, but not me. The elective that impacted me the most was actually the class that I performed poorly in. I took a class titled “Planet Earth through Time” in my junior year of college. It was the only course that fit in with my classes and still fit into the requirements I needed to fulfill. I figured it would be a boring class, buy I never imagined it being so difficult, but that is why the course impacted me so much.
All throughout high school and college I obsessed about having straight A’s and being perfect. It was not healthy and in turn made me very sick. I had no idea how to make it stop and thought this was just who I was. This class taught me you can make mistakes and preform less than perfect and still be fine!
I worked hard every day on the course work, but I failed almost every test. I had no idea what I was doing wrong. I soon found out everyone else was failing as well, so it wasn’t just me. That helped put my mind at ease, but not fully. I had never gotten anything less than a B+ in my life, and I finished this class with a C.
I thought my life was over. I couldn’t function for weeks. I eventually realized that it didn’t matter. I was still perfecting my actual degree curriculum and life was going on. Now looking back that class means nothing to me. It had no negative impact on my life at all. I still earned my B.A. and now I am in graduate school. The course content did not stay with me, but the life lesson it taught me did. You will survive, and everything will be ok.