Why I Am Glad I Was a Horrible Student

Throughout the first 8 years of my education, I did stuff “my way”. Doing things my way meant that I didn’t put in much effort and merely squeaked by. I would hit the bare minimum and call it a day. I was capable of more, as I know now, but had no desire for anything past going through the motions. All of elementary and middle school I would get in trouble for poor grades, sometimes even acting out of line in class. Nothing too horrendous by any means, but I wasn’t living up to my potential — the results sure reflected it. I knew the material, but frankly, just didn’t give a shit. So I stayed in the middle/bottom of the pack day by day.

As I hit high school, as a freshman I was a bit better, but still would get into trouble with my parents for poor grades in the classes that I didn’t find enjoyable. Luckily, things made a turnaround. I found my passion and purpose were in healthcare after taking an intro class in sports medicine. Quickly, I realized if I wanted to follow my dreams; my results had to improve. I ended high school with a weighted GPA over 4.0 and would say that my high school career was successful. I made it into a good program for undergraduate studies and I am now satisfied with where I am academically and emotionally. So what does my early history of failure have to do with any of this?

My previous failures at rock bottom gave me the resilience needed to push through difficult coursework. Poor results will fucking humble you, no matter who you are.

So as I began to take school seriously, I’ve had something my peers in class did not — humility. A lot of these kids in “harder” or “upper level” coursework have always been “A” students. They had never seen a poor grade come back to their desk on a test, a quiz, maybe even their homework. I, on the other hand, well, I had 8 years of experience being slapped in the face by grades most would consider mediocre, even awful.

Now that I am in my undergraduate nursing program, we have VERY rigorous coursework. Our anatomy exams average scores in the 50% range (the scores are “curved” later to scores usually averaging around 75%). It seems like all the kids in this program are the kids who always got A’s from elementary school all the way to college, because they did. When they get handed back the lowest grade they have ever seen for their work, I can see the frustration, anger, and pain. I get it, I’ve been there. But I have experienced it enough, so much, as to push through the long, dark tunnel of failure and find the bright side.

I have a friend in the program who I think temporarily, got pretty lost in the tunnel of failure. He took a hands-on midterm anatomy exam with the bones of the body and was quite angry with his result. I received a text from him concerned with how his results would turn out followed by another which read “I actually wanna quit”.

He is not alone. I have many classmates thinking and saying the same things he did. I have thought and said these things myself — but earlier in my career. Whether it was failing out of advanced math in middle school, countless failed Spanish quizzes, or pretty much my entire elementary and middle school existence, I got to learn my lessons earlier.

Honestly, failure is the best thing to have ever happened to me. I am thankful that it happened to me earlier than my classmates. Ultimately, the majority (roughly 70%) of us do pass our classes, since you need a C to pass. Yet as a freshman, I find that I’ve been saved from unnecessary stress, grief, and tears that my peers are facing for the first time in their lives. I believe that without experiencing cold hard failure, I would not be as resilient of a human as I am now. It helped me to understand that not everything I do will earn an A or an applause, and that failure is not the end of my academic career or any journey I may be on. Truthfully I owe my current success to past and current failure.

I am glad I was a horrible student, because I know that failure is a prerequisite to happy and healthy success.