Finding Success In Failure by Sarah

Finding Success In Failure by Sarah - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

Entering into the first semester of my freshman year of college, my spirits were high and I felt like I was ready to conquer the world. I had flown through high school and gotten excellent grades in all of my classes. I knew that college would be harder and more work, but was certainly not prepared for what was coming. I was enrolled in a three week long math class that would determine whether or not I would take calculus for the rest of the semester. If I did poorly in the class, then I would have to take pre-calculus; a class I had already taken in high school and done quite well in.

Just a few days into class, I felt like I was drowning. The material we were covering was far more advanced than anything I had done in high school and my skill level was not quite where it should be. I began to panic about the upcoming final. If I did not pass the class, then I would have to retake pre-calculus which would set me behind a semester in math and might mean taking summer school. I spent long hours studying for the final and doing problem after problem to practice. I thought that if I could just get through a few more practice problems, then everything would be ok and I would pass.

The day of the final quickly approached. Not only was it a final after three short weeks of class, it was my first ever college test. As the professor began passing out the exams, I felt confident and ready. I had spent the past week studying harder than I have ever studied in my life. There was no possible way I could fail. Or so I thought. The moment I opened the exam and read the first question, my mind went blank and my stress level skyrocketed. I flipped through the pages frantically only to realize that all the questions were written differently than the practice problems and I had no idea how to do half of the problems.

I filled in as much as I could and tried to come up with an answer for every question. I turned in my exam, thanked the professor, and walked away feeling crushed. Failure was not something that I dealt with in high school. Later that night, grades were posted online. I had failed the final and gotten a “D” in the class. I called my parents crying, so upset that I had failed and now had to retake a class that I had already taken. If I could not even pass a simple math test, then maybe college just was not for me.

I was upset for a few days until I came to realize that staying upset would only cause me to do poorly in all my other classes. I picked my head up, accepted the reality of my situation, and continued on. Because I had failed the three week course, it made me so much more motivated to try even harder in my new math class. There was still plenty to learn even though I had already taken the class before. As the semester came to a close and I began to reflect on how much I had learned, I came to realize that my failure made me stronger. It served as a wake-up call reminding me to form better study and test taking habits. Retaking pre-calculus helped strengthen my skills and build a strong foundation that would serve me well in calculus. If I had gone straight into calculus, I would have struggled the whole semester because my skills would not have been strong enough. Ultimately, I learned that success is not measured by the grades you get in the classroom. Success is about trying your hardest even if it results in failure, learning from every triumph and every trial, and the people you touch along the way.