26A - Celebrating Failure

1) This semester, I dropped my first class. I've always been pretty good at math, so when I realized stats was NOT clicking with my brain, for the first time I panicked and had no idea what to do. Studying, having my friend tutor me, and relentlessly watching Khan Academy videos usually work for me but didn't in this case.

2) What I learned from it is that when I retake stats I should focus on building the foundation. The reason I struggled so much was because I didn't understand the basic concepts of stats, which the rest of the class builds on. So what I think I would do differently next time is definitely focus from the get-go and make sure I never miss a lecture.

3) This particular failure was devastating to me because when you drop a class you have to pay for it. I have the top tier of Bright Futures, which covers 100% of my tuition for classes. However, when I dropped stats, I had to agree to pay back Bright Futures for that coverage. SO, I had to call my parents, admit to them I was dropping a class (my dad is an immigrant, and if you have parents who are immigrants you'll understand that this does NOT go over well. Failure is not an option). This was not only embarrassing but I felt back because of the money. Now I'll have to get a job to save up and pay off that debt because my parents said that since it was my failure, I'm the one who has to pay for it. I don't think I'm more likely to take a risk because of this- I think I'm less likely to. This experience has made me more hesitant to take on a lot of demanding classes at once, which may be a good or a bad thing. I guess if anything this experience has made me realize that not every class will be a cakewalk and I have to take them more seriously from the start before realizing it's actually a really tough class.