Originally published on December 26, 2016
Sometimes life throws you a curveball, a curveball that slams
you in the face and causes you to have a near panic attack and reevaluate your
entire future. Mine happened in the form of a core class under the command of a
new professor. Here is the abridged version of my adventure through Part One of
the course and the advice I’ve come up with now that I’m on the other side
(hint: perseverance).
I won’t mention what class this was specifically, but my
friends who were in the class know exactly what it was. It was information constantly
being thrown at us, online quizzes that weren’t always relevant, and a
breakneck pace that caused us all to basically throw in the towel and say,
“Whatever. There’s no way I’m going to do well. He can’t fail all of us,” and
hope for the best. I made do with the grades I got on the quizzes and hoped
that a midterm, not taken online, would be a good test of my knowledge and
something I can actually study for. I wrote angry letters to no one and
contemplated withdrawing from the course. It was that bad. For someone like me,
to be literally failing a class, it was just unheard of. The only thing that
surprised me is that it took until I was a sophomore in college to meet a class
that I couldn’t face. So like other challenges in the academic sense, I told
this class “game on” and persevered through every online quiz I felt insulted
my intelligence. I did better on the quizzes and argued some of my answers,
getting points back. I continued to chronicle my struggles in case the midterm
turned out poorly.
Then came the midterm. It was terrifying, but I studied
hard, like for any other class, and did alright. I think by this point I had gotten
a B in the class and was feeling a little better, but still up to the
challenge. If I could get a B, why not aim for an A? And then something
wonderful happened. The professor wanted to talk to me about what I thought
about the class and what he could change. So I met with him, told him about my
struggles and tried to remember every other thing I had talked to other
students in the class about. And over the course of about three weeks, the
class completely changed. Gone were the timed online quizzes that pulled
obscure facts from the book. Now we had written quizzes on Mondays and Fridays
based only on our lectures, full PowerPoints each class, a slower pace, a
changed grading scale, and, most importantly, a curve set on all quizzes we had
already taken so that everyone was guaranteed to pass. By the time the final
came around, we were all so much more comfortable with the class and hey, I
ended up getting an A. Next semester will be a lot less stressful, overall.
When you go to a school as small as Mercyhurst, there’s a
wonderful thing about professor-student interaction. You can give feedback,
they listen to your concerns. Persevere through your hardest classes, and only
withdraw as a last resort and not as a rash decision. If you can’t talk to the
professor directly, mention something to your department head or your advisor.
They all want you to succeed. Don’t let one class get in the way of your
academic success. Try everything you can in your power to make it a positive
experience for yourself and others. You’ll be grateful on the other side.
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