Life Lessons Courtesy of College - 2

Good Is Not Great - Always Keep Trying


Before college I was always the student that didn't have to spend hours in the library studying for a test; I simply looked over notes the day of the test and got an A. While many of my friends were always telling me how great of a thing this was and how lucky I was to be able to do this, I never knew how much it was actually hindering me. So naturally, I came to college with that same exact mentality - "I don't have to study too hard, it worked in high school so it should definitely work now". Let me tell you, I was extremely wrong. When my first precalculus test came back with a big fat 43 on it, I was astonished and thought it had to be a mistake until I looked at the name on the paper and all the red marks littering the page. "This is it," I had thought, "I have to drop the class. I will never be able to pass this class". This grade was a wake up call and taught me right off the bat that college could not be treated the same as high school. From that day on I had to teach myself how to study, how to focus on work for an extended period of time without switching to Netflix when I got bored, and how to redevelop myself as a student. I'm not saying I drastically switched to a straight A student from there but I certainly haven't received that same grade since. 

Probably the hardest situation that taught me to always keep trying was my search for an internship. Throughout high school and the first couple years of college I had held retail jobs and those were not hard to find or apply for and most had immediate responses and hired me right away. When the quest for an internship began the summer before my Junior year in college I thought it would be the same way. I had my simple and blasé resume that I thought would impress the employers and began applying to everything I could get my hands on. When no offers or emails came through from employers I began to get down on myself and not understand what was happening. I had the support from my family but I began to lose hope in myself. While this was not the right way to think and not the correct mentality to be in, I thought it was at the time. After a couple weeks of moping around I saw a business fraternity tabling for new members to join. I stepped out of my bubble of comfort, went through the application process, and gained a spot within the organization. From there I learned the correct ways to impress employers and make yourself more appealing for those coveted positions within their company, beginning with overhauling my boring resume and making it more appealing and eye catching. Skip to the February of Junior year and I received an offer for an amazing company for an internship and at the end of the summer it turned into a full time job offer upon my graduation. 

Moral of the story: had I just given up and kept the mindset that my "good" qualities and skills were enough, I never would have improved my grades in school nor would I have gained a great internship. Good is truly never enough as there will always be room to improve and things to fix. 

Comments

  1. Waneshia MorrisSeptember 5, 2017 at 9:03 AM

    I had a very similar experience. High school was always a breeze, never took any time to study and still maintained a 4.0 throughout my entire high school career. I actually decided to come to UGA simply to challenge myself. I had a high school counselor that actually told me to find a more "reasonable" school when discussing college applications. She didn't know that I had straight A's and would graduate 5th of my class of over 500 students (: This encouraged me even more to apply and attend UGA. I have had some pretty tough classes that forced me to do things differently, such as going to office hours, and actually studying for hours every day out of the week for an upcoming test. You are absolutely right, good is never enough and you should always strive to improve, even when things seem to be going your way.

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