Redefining Failure by Kristy

Redefining Failure by Kristy - April 2019 Scholarship Essay

In todays society students are constantly being pushed to work hard academically which I believe is a very good thing. I also think how we define failure as a society is playing a huge roll in todays college communities. I am currently attending a small community college in Powell, Wyoming. For the past year and a half I have been working towards my vocal music performance associates degree. Music is something I have always been passionate about and loved doing. This semester however I was faced with one of the hardest decisions I have had to make thus far. Due to our schools small size our student to teacher ratio in our department is about 5:1. It is a close knit department where everyone knows everyone. At first this was one of the biggest attractions to me. I never thought it would be the reason that held me back from my degree. At the beginning of the year I started to have some small issues with one of my professors. Not wanting to jeopardize my degree I simply kept my head down and pushed forward. As the year went on though things simply seemed to get worse. At one point I was locked in his office and yelled at for over an hour and was not allowed to leave until I apologized to him for being two minutes late for class which he took as a sign of disrespect. At one point I even tried to leave his office, as I felt very uncomfortable, but he barred my way to the exit and made me sit there until he was verbally tearing me down. He generally uses very inappropriate language and is constantly tearing other students and myself down. Three weeks ago I received a very harsh email from him saying how I am lazy, disrespectful, and am just overall a burden to the department. This harassment and verbal abuse got to the point where I no longer felt safe going to classes and had no motivation for school. So I made the very hard and sad decision to withdraw from all of his classes. This in turn meant I could not complete enough core classes to receive my music degree. As hard as that decision was I knew I needed to put myself and my mental health first. I am still an full time student and will be graduating in May 2019. After that I will be transferring to South Dakota State University to continue my degree and pursue an education in environmental science. Sometimes we as students are faced with some pretty big road bumps in our path to a better education. I am choosing to look at this situation as a learning experience rather than a failure. I truly believe it's how we handle these situations and our attitudes that will continue to make us successful.