Study Group - Fail by Katie

Study Group - Fail by Katie - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

During my first year in college I was still undecided on my major, though I had always leaned towards anything in the medical field. Upon research, it seemed anything I would choose to major in had a program which was very competitive to get accepted into. This made me work extra hard in class; always working towards a better grade, and ultimately a better future. Extra credit would not slip by me either- I would have dusted all of the keyboards in the library for an extra .1% in my math class.

A couple weeks into my second semester, my psychology professor announced to the class that she would be giving extra credit for anyone wanting to lead a student study group, and also scored and ‘A’ on the last test. Bingo! To me, this was the best kind of extra credit- I didn't have to go outside of what we learned in the classroom, which was extremely nice. Immediately I volunteered with Katelyn, a girl who I also studied anatomy with, and we soon started drawing up the details.

A week later, our professor made an announcement to all of her psychology classes that there would be a study group held later that day, adding that anyone who should show up would also receive extra credit. Intentionally, Katelyn and I had no idea if anyone would even show up to the study group, since we often studied with the anatomy/psychology tutor (Elise) for anatomy, and during her psychology hours nobody ever showed up (besides us, of course, because Elise is the best). So, if nobody ever showed up to receive help from the best, why would they want help from Katelyn and I?

To our surprise, many people wanted help- except, we weren't able to do much for them. Once we entered the learning center at our college, the displeased voice at the desk informed us that she would call security if any of the candy in our bag was left behind. No problem, this is a universal rule that I think all are taught throughout their school years. Of course, we’re adult’s now- but she was ultimately right. We were just adults bringing candy to a study group to hand out as prizes whenever the other adults answered questions correctly in a Jeopardy game.

Once we got to our room which our professor had reserved, we began unloading the goods and setting everything up. People began piling into the room before our sign in sheet was made! Our Jeopardy game was brought on a USB device, so we plugged it into the smart board and were finally ready to start. A tutor from the learning center walked into the room, though, and everything immediately fell apart. The tutor began demanding to know where our professor was, and argued with my partner Katelyn for several minutes. Long story short, Katelyn left to cool off, and the tutor turned everything electrical off in the room (besides the lights, of course).

This left me alone with 13 other students who came for help. Being a freshman, I knew none of these people, and I was far from the social type. But how can you turn away a group of people who are sitting in front of you, looking to you for help? I felt awful, in the minutes after the argument was over many started to complain of how they needed that night of studying to pass the upcoming test.
I had nothing with me that night (Katelyn had brought all of our material on her USB), so I improvised and brought the small group even closer together in the room we were in. Everyone gathered around a table, and on a single laptop I pulled up the chapters we were learning in class and begun discussing them. For maybe a half hour we talked about how interesting psychology is, possible study tips, and of course I gave them my biggest apology. I felt bad even after I talked with everyone, I was hoping Katelyn and I could do more for them. We could have, too, but not everything works out the way you plan, and our test was only the next day. Still, everyone who showed up thanked me for trying, hoping Katelyn and I wouldn't get in any sort of trouble- and we didn't. We all got our extra credit, and I found that I am pretty good at tutoring people. Since, I've helped several people in my anatomy class, and continue to help anyone that I can.