Moving too fast by Syrhaiyah

Moving too fast by Syrhaiyah - August 2022 Scholarship Essay

I returned to college too soon. This realization hit me like a ton of bricks mid-spring semester. For half of the spring semester, I sobbed every night, struggled to wake up every morning, forgot to eat until afternoon, and spent most of my free time napping. I didn’t want to be like this but the harder I fought, the more I felt like I was being buried by the weight of school and my personal life. Even though my professors desperately tried to help me through emails, personal zoom calls, and care team checkups, I felt isolated and even worse a failure.
Prior to my spring semester, I took a leave of absence because my mother had an aortic aneurysm and I wanted to be there to support and comfort her during the three-month recovery. Thus self-care was pushed to my rearview as I centered my focus on being there for my mom through the pain-filled nights and agonizing days. As a result, I never stopped to think about if I was ok. Ignoring the signs of burnout led to my most disastrous time in school yet with disappointing grades and lackluster effort in every class.
I remained in a “doing enough to get by” mindset for the remainder of my spring semester. Existing in a daze causing all the days to merge together into a blur. Then the veil was unexpectedly lifted revealing the error of my ways when I discovered that I passed with one B, two C’s, and a heart-shattering C-. I have never received such bad grades in my life. During high school, I graduated with a perfect 4.0 and a grocery list worth of extracurriculars and accomplishments. So how could I have fallen so far down? I knew I needed to change quickly. I spent my summer planning out my school weeks in detail and then proceeded to recruit 3 accountability partners. Lastly, I began practicing asking for help whether it be asking a vertically gifted stranger to grab something off the top shelf or even asking my boss for feedback on my rudimentary resume.
Therefore, this semester I aim to get a 4.0 GPA. I aim to do this by committing 3-5:30 pm to do homework in the library and attending office hours for every class once every 2 weeks. I will check my grade book once a week to make sure I completed every assignment with good quality. Although this goal requires extreme discipline, I desperately need to achieve this to pull myself out of the mud. A strong desire to prove that if I use campus resources such as therapy, office hours, study groups, and the writing center then I can thrive and finally feel proud of myself. I want the satisfaction of having the underdog story where in the end I can stand proud of myself and the work I do. I want to be able to say “I love myself enough to stop disappointing myself.” It’s time to turn “wanting to be better” into “I am doing better.” The unfortunate truth is I did return to school too soon after a traumatic event however I won’t let one bad semester dictate the overall success of my college career. As sung by the late singer Aaliyah “If at first you don’t succeed, then dust yourself off and try again.”