Out of my whole college career this semester has probably been the craziest of all. I started a new career as a realtor, it is my first semester at UF and I also have a job where I have lots of responsibility. I am going to talk about how I miserably failed in the first quarter of this semester trying to accommodate all my responsibilities.
I've always been pretty busy my whole life, whether with sports, school, work, or social life. My first two years in college was pretty intense I was a full time student and a full time worker, and also had a part time job for some periods of the year. I was pretty successful at managing everything and getting good grades, so I thought this semester would be pretty much the same, but I wasn't counting on UF intensity and my new career demanding duties.
Long story short, I totally forgot to schedule proctor U for one of my first exams for one of my classes and got a big fat F on it. I was overwhelmed, not obtaining positive results from school and barely sleeping. What a Fail!! I had never failed an exam before, and this one I didn't even take it. Thats when I realized I had to do something about it. I learned from my mistake and I became more organized, I started waking up at 5am and being extremely productive in the morning, working on real estate in the afternoon and my other job at night. I would either study at night or in the morning. Things started to work better, I created a system for my real estate career where I didn't have to do the same work over and over and I was able to get to the end of the semester in a better shape.
No one really likes to fail, but when I fail I try to reflect on it, and watch it from an outside perspective in order to find the problem in my action so I can quickly fix it. Sometimes it takes many tries to achieve the expected result, but the reward from it is worth all the fails.
I don't think that the class in particular has changed my perspective of failure, just because I've somehow always know that failure is part of the game. But I do appreciate the fact that this class embraces it. I identify myself a lot with this class, and I am glad I took it.
I have always embraced failure, I see failure as an one step closer to success, I am not afraid to fail, and I attribute some of my success to that.
One quote that marked me a lot was "I never lose. I either win, or I learn" Nelson Mandela.
Hey Valtenius,
ReplyDeleteI felt like I was reading an exert out of my life when I read this. I too faced the same struggles and had a lot of issues trying to balance life with UF. I started my education at a community college, I was a part of student government and four other student organizations, along with a part time job. I grossly underestimated the course load when transferring to UF and I failed a majority of my courses in my first semester. (I say Fail I really mean like a low C). I was really torn up over the semester because I had never struggled with school so much. Thanks for sharing!
Valtenius,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your story of failure. I feel like I learned a lot from reading about that experience, I was able to relate to times of my life where I felt that level of stress and anxiety over so much being on my plate, and I think when I face that again later on in life I will be able to more prepared to succeed and have a mindset that reminds me to keep grinding on.
Brandon
Hi Valtenius,
ReplyDeleteI can relate to that! I got my first F ever on an exam this semester as well! I guess the key lesson in failure is what we decide to do with it. I think so many people view failure as losing, as some sort of final outcome. Good to see you decided to instead have it motivate you to do something different to prevent it from happening again!
Cameron