Celebrating Failure

1. How I love to talk about my failures! Um, no, not really. But, let's get into it. My latest failure to date is brought to you from my fall 2015 semester. It was my first semester here at UF (I'm a transfer student) and the class was Financial Accounting and Reporting 1. I tried to keep up with the notes in class and listening to the professor talk a mile a minute, but I was definitely struggling. However, I thought I knew enough to feel okay about the first exam. Grades come out: boom. Failed it. Of course I feel like crap about myself and think "ugh, this sucks". So, I buckle down for the next test, because I know I have to do well on it to stay in the class. I spent 3 days in the library from noon to 1 am studying, and manage to pull out a 78 on the next test. I LIVED, I DIED, I LIVED AGAIN. After those 2 grades, I realized I had to pull out a B on the final to pass the class. After much deliberation, I decided to stay in the class, rather than dropping it, and try my absolute hardest to do well on the last test. Test comes and goes, grade comes out: boom. Failed it again. So I ended up technically failing the class, but my professor was kind enough to give me a D instead so that my Bright Futures remained intact. Unfortunately, since it was a 4 credit class, the D annihilated my GPA, despite the good grades I had gotten in my other classes.

Long story short: My failure was failing an accounting class, which ended up forcing me to switch majors to Finance.

2. Well, I learned that being an Accounting major was definitely not for me. While I did have the opportunity to take the class again to try and pass, I realized that I dreaded taking the class again. I did not enjoy waking up twice a week to go to it, I would constantly look at the clock waiting for class to be over, and while I enjoyed some of the concepts we discussed in class, I found a lot of the information to be tedious. As an accounting major, I probably shouldn't be feeling those ways in an accounting class. Failing (or almost failing) helped me realize that I wanted to be in a broader area of learning, where the things I learned could be applied to various industries so that I would have some wiggle room later on.

3. My thoughts on failure? It completely, totally sucks when it's happening. I, like many others I'm sure, hate to fail. I felt so bad about myself when I did so poorly in that accounting class, especially because it appeared that I was the only one struggling in it. (It also sucked because everyone in the class seemed absolutely certain that they wanted to be a CPA upon leaving UF, whereas I'm still exploring career options, but I digress). Now that I can look back on it, I'm proud of myself that I stuck it out in the class, even though the outcome was less then desirable. The hit my GPA took was a rough one, but I'm on track to pull it up this semester. I think that the whole experience helped me see that not all of my classes would be easy for me (as they were at my previous school), and that sometimes I'll fall down academically (another feeling I was not accustomed to). Overall: no one likes to fail. But looking back, it could help people realize things about themselves, and possibly put themselves into a better position going forward.