In the Event You Fail a Course
The great philosopher Confucius said, "our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising every time we fall." Failing a course in college is not the end of the world, though it may feel like it at the time (especially when you have to show your parents your semester’s grades). Many great people have failed along the way. Winston Churchill flunked the sixth grade. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Henry Ford failed miserably a number of times before making his mark in the automobile industry. The list goes on and on. The key is to learn from your mistakes and move on.
If you fail a course, you need to look at the big picture and figure out how this will affect your academic record. Will you need to retake the course? Should you take a different course that will be more manageable? Was this course required before you could take more challenging courses? These are all questions you should consider. Talk with your academic advisor about your next move. You should look into summer courses that you could take to make up the missing credits. If you live far away from your college, look for colleges closer to home where you could take a summer course. Make sure your school will accept credits from whichever college where you take a summer course.
Be honest with your parents. While they will not be thrilled with the result, they will appreciate you taking responsibility for your mistake. By being forthright about your failure, you will relieve some of the stress you will probably be feeling in the immediate aftermath. Ultimately, you want to be able to rely on your parents for support in the future. The more honest you are with them about both good and bad experiences in college, the more likely they will be to support you down the road.
The most important step you can take after failing a course is to move on. Easier said than done, right? Well, remember that college is a place and time for you to learn who you are. Life would not be very interesting if you just coasted through all your experiences. The real world is filled with challenges. If you can put the failure behind and learn why it happened, you will wind up stronger for the experience. Analyze what went wrong and make the necessary corrections starting the very next semester.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 10:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
