What College Can't Teach Freshmen
**This post is slightly different from the type I usually write. It is largely based on my personal experiences (hence the repetitive use of “I” and “me”), and warning it includes copious amounts of tough love. So here it goes…
I am a perfectionist. I love mastering skills to the point of flawless execution. I hate making mistakes. I hate finding mistakes. I avoid reading my own work over again. I avoid listening to recordings of myself speaking, singing, or playing (I’m a musician). Why? Anything less than perfect feels like failure to me.
Now that I am a teacher, and have been a teacher going on four years, I realize just how destructive my fear of failure has been to me personally. Refusing to look back over the past keeps me from analyzing and adapting to areas of needed improvement. This refusal to face and conquer my failures hurts one person—me.
One of my greatest regrets of my college years (especially my freshman year) is that I did not learn to embrace failure. My college years fed my insecurities and my insatiable appetite for perfection. College didn’t prepare me to fail, but here’s how you can learn to embrace failure and utilize it for your benefit.
What does it mean to fail?
Before I go any further, I need to step back and define this important term. While I could certainly insert the dictionary definition for “failure” here, I won’t. Failure or failing means something different to different people.
To one college student, failing may mean earning anything less than a 4.0. For another college student, failing may mean staying out a semester to earn money for college bills. Another student may consider making no meaningful friendships failure. To me, failure meant doing anything less than my perfectionist standards.
The term “failure” likely means something entirely different to you. If you take a moment to try to create a personal definition, you could probably quickly define this idea. You almost instantly know what makes you feel defeated or down.
I want you to take a moment and free yourself from this definition. Whatever it is that you fear or dread most, reconstruct this idea from being a negative idea to a positive idea. Reframe your idea of failure.
Thomas Edison is credited with famously claiming that his many flawed prototypes of the lightbulb were not failures, but merely prototypes that didn’t work. Instead of viewing your mistakes from first semester as a sign that you are a failure, view these mistakes as stepping stones, as necessarily obstacles that lead you to the mountain top view.
Why is failure important?
During my first semester of college, I determined to get a 4.0. As a result of my long studying hours, I had no social life, I was miserable, and I was constantly crying. I would spend long hours alone, studying for classes.
None of these habits were bad. In fact, many would claim that these were excellent ways to spend my time. However, this fierce dedication to perfect grades blinded me.
Anything less than an A left me defeated to the point of tears. Any teacher who didn’t cooperate with my plans was considered unhelpful or unjustly hard. How ridiculous, right? I needed my perspective adjusted.
My sophomore year of college knocked me down. Because I never made my health a priority, I began struggling with severe fatigue to the point where I felt too tired to walk to class. While this may seem like an extreme example, this lesson took me a long time to learn—perfectionism was harming me literally.
Not really until after college did I start to realize how unprepared I was for “real life.” Because I fought so hard not to fail in school, I wasn’t able to cope with any level of rejection—applying to jobs, beginning relationships, interacting with students, etc. Anything less than getting a job offer or being praised by a student cut me to my core.
Please, oh please, don’t be like me. And please, oh please, don’t do the opposite either (aka not try at all). Try to do your best and trust that your best is enough. Failing can be the best way to find redirection or to find the added motivation you need to get things done.
Thomas Edison also stated, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." Don’t let the mistakes you’ve made last semester keep you down. Failure is part of the journey, and if you never learn from getting knocked down, you’ll never make it to the destination.
How can recover from failing?
If you find yourself at the end of a long first semester or if you find yourself unsure of what the next step is (continuing in college or taking a gap semester/year), this is for you:
You don’t have to have the answers. I know this is a hard place to be, but sometimes you don’t need to know the perfect or right answer. Sometimes you just need to do the next thing. Don’t know if you should continue in your major? Shadow a professional, volunteer, or get an internship. Don’t know if you should transfer schools? Contact other schools to see what programs they offer.
You don’t need to keep pushing on. Sometimes failing (whatever that means to you) signals a need for rearranging your priorities. Like in my own personal situation, I put way too high of a value on good grades and way too little of a value on my physical and mental health. Take a break (especially during the holidays) and recharge.
You do need to ask for some help. Do you struggle to ask others for assistance? Stop and consider the alternative—doing what you have been doing (which hasn’t been working). You may need to swallow your injured ego and simply ask for help. The key to succeeding is often knowing when to get help.
You do need to make changes—for real. Saying you’ll change and actually changing are two different things. You can say that you’ll get to bed earlier, that you’ll study more, or that you’ll spend less money until the end of your college years, but doing it takes resolve. Plan to make real changes, get some accountability, and just do it.
College can’t teach you how to face failure. You have to determine to make the right things important, find help when you’re struggling, etc. Your mom or your dad can’t pass this skill to you through their genes. Your teachers can’t give you a grade you did not earn. You have to determine that whatever happens you won’t let your idea of failure keep you from getting back up and get going.
