Academic Obstacle and Personal Trial: Lessons to be Learned by Ma. Glenda

Academic Obstacle and Personal Trial: Lessons to be Learned by Ma. Glenda - June 2016 Scholarship Essay

Our academic well-being is closely intertwined with our personal lives. Occurrences at the personal level, whether positive or negative, can greatly affect how we perform academically. Happy occurrences without doubt bring about positive effects on our academics. Conversely, untoward happenings will have negative repercussions on our academic well-being.

A few years back, I experienced how my academics was put at a disarray because of a heartbreaking personal experience. I was in the midst of writing my graduate thesis when I had a miscarriage almost five months into my pregnancy. The baby was a long-awaited addition to the family after having my first-born seven years earlier. A cloud of sadness hovers over my family, especially unto myself for several days. I was also ridden with guilt, constantly thinking of what I did wrong that led to the miscarriage. I could not go back to my thesis writing. My academics was put at a stand-still.

After several weeks of grieving and self-guilt, I felt that it was time to re-focus and get hold of myself. I continuously reminded and made myself believe that I have had enough period of grieving and that I had to face the realities of life even though how difficult it was as I was still burdened with sadness. I tried to focus on the thought that I have a family who depended on me and so I need to improve my well-being and disposition to be able to take care of them.

The first thing I did was to inform my supervisor about my personal problem and hence my thesis draft submission will be delayed. My professor was so understanding of my situation and told me to prioritize my physical and emotional healing before going back to my studies. Sharing my situation with my professor took a lot of stress and pressure off myself.

Likewise, although how hard it was, I reminded myself to focus on my goal of finishing my studies, and tried to channel my thoughts and energies to attaining such objective. I started organizing my readings and notes to make me go back to my reading and writing.

Throughout my struggle of going back to my studies, I tried to think about and draw strength from the people I love who would need me to get better, take control of myself, and finish my graduate degree. The notion of having other people believing in me, and consequently not wanting to disappoint them in the process, tremendously helped me to gain anchor and focus on what needs to be done.

To summarize, I hope to share the following learnings from my personal experience on how to deal with academic obstacle, especially in relation to that which arose because of personal trial. Firstly, sharing your problems with teachers would take off a lot of burden. Teachers would want you to stay on course in school and most of them would willingly extend support for you to overcome personal issues in order to graduate. As a teacher myself previously, I can say that most teachers would want their students to succeed. Secondly, you should not lose sight of the goal of finishing your studies. This will aid a lot in letting you focus on important matters that need to be done. Thirdly, try to draw strength from people you love. Such will help channel your thoughts and energies to the important goal of reaching graduation.

Lastly, remember that trials strengthen us and make available lessons valuable to our daily living especially during difficult times. Our selves definitely emerge better after every obstacle that we overcome. As a Chinese proverb wisely reminds us: “The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.”