Getting My First Bad Grade
I got the surprise of my life (more or less) when I checked my grades on Monday. I have always been a straight A's student, and the few B's that I have gotten in college so far have devastated me. Imagine how I felt the moment the website showed up, and I got a D. It was my first D ever. I had never gotten anything past a B+ prior to that.
Head spinning, heart racing, palm sweating, I was convinced that my professor had made a mistake. Surely I couldn't possibly have gotten a D. The first thing I could think of was emailing my professor and asking him if he had made a mistake. Long story short, I got a response this afternoon, saying that I did indeed get a D, and he would not make any changes to my grade.
Through all my fair shares of failures, I still have trouble dealing with it, being a perfectionist and all that. A part of me actually wished he had given me an F, so that I can repeat that class and do over. But there is no do-over in real life.
As with any heartache and failure in life, there are stages that have to be trekked through. I have moved past denial, anger, sadness, and I am now moving into the "acceptance" stage. Within my journey there, I want to share with you a couple of things just in case you're going through a bad day, a bad grade, or any failure at all. I would say this is also a healing process for me.
Accept the failure and learn from it. It's easier said than done, but dwelling on it isn't going to change anything. We all stumble and fall at one point. I've said to my friend once that you learn more from mistakes than from triumphs. It's not the end of the world. It's normal to get upset, and possibly cry, but at the end of the day, all you can do is pick up the pieces and move forward. My mistake, time and time again, is letting myself be defined by my grades or failures.
I'm not sure about other people, but reminding myself that plenty of highly successful people have failed many times, whether in school or in life. Case in point, Albert Einstein, Bill Gate, and possibly even Stephen Hawking. Everyone fails, actually, at one point or another.
I guess if anything, I should know this well enough but I always seem to overlook it, it's that years from now, grades aren't going to matter. I've been working for about 5 years now, and I don't think my bosses, or people I work with, care what my GPA is. Once you're out of school and stepping into the real working world, it's about your performance, what you can do, and what you can offer. Besides, if tomorrow was your last year, you wouldn't be dwelling on your failures, mistakes, or in my case, barely passing grades.
One of my ways of dealing with this, is to focus my energy on succeeding in other things that I am doing right now. I have to report on a story, and I am aiming to do hell of a job. I have to write a few more posts, and I am planning to slay that, too. Rather than letting that D get to me, I am going to use that as my motivation.
I hope this has helped anyone who's reading this, as writing all these down have somewhat eased away my anxiety and hopelessness. To quote Scarlett O'Hara from one of my all-time favorite books, "Gone with the wind", "After all, tomorrow is another day."
Head spinning, heart racing, palm sweating, I was convinced that my professor had made a mistake. Surely I couldn't possibly have gotten a D. The first thing I could think of was emailing my professor and asking him if he had made a mistake. Long story short, I got a response this afternoon, saying that I did indeed get a D, and he would not make any changes to my grade.
Through all my fair shares of failures, I still have trouble dealing with it, being a perfectionist and all that. A part of me actually wished he had given me an F, so that I can repeat that class and do over. But there is no do-over in real life.
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| Credit: honestlyya.com |
As with any heartache and failure in life, there are stages that have to be trekked through. I have moved past denial, anger, sadness, and I am now moving into the "acceptance" stage. Within my journey there, I want to share with you a couple of things just in case you're going through a bad day, a bad grade, or any failure at all. I would say this is also a healing process for me.
Accept the failure and learn from it. It's easier said than done, but dwelling on it isn't going to change anything. We all stumble and fall at one point. I've said to my friend once that you learn more from mistakes than from triumphs. It's not the end of the world. It's normal to get upset, and possibly cry, but at the end of the day, all you can do is pick up the pieces and move forward. My mistake, time and time again, is letting myself be defined by my grades or failures.
I'm not sure about other people, but reminding myself that plenty of highly successful people have failed many times, whether in school or in life. Case in point, Albert Einstein, Bill Gate, and possibly even Stephen Hawking. Everyone fails, actually, at one point or another.
I guess if anything, I should know this well enough but I always seem to overlook it, it's that years from now, grades aren't going to matter. I've been working for about 5 years now, and I don't think my bosses, or people I work with, care what my GPA is. Once you're out of school and stepping into the real working world, it's about your performance, what you can do, and what you can offer. Besides, if tomorrow was your last year, you wouldn't be dwelling on your failures, mistakes, or in my case, barely passing grades.
One of my ways of dealing with this, is to focus my energy on succeeding in other things that I am doing right now. I have to report on a story, and I am aiming to do hell of a job. I have to write a few more posts, and I am planning to slay that, too. Rather than letting that D get to me, I am going to use that as my motivation.
I hope this has helped anyone who's reading this, as writing all these down have somewhat eased away my anxiety and hopelessness. To quote Scarlett O'Hara from one of my all-time favorite books, "Gone with the wind", "After all, tomorrow is another day."
Love, Catherine
XOXO
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