Rae Templeton, Global E3: KU Leuven, Belgium Summer 2024
Studying abroad forced me to fail at academics for the first time. While that might seem like a terrifying and dark start to a blog post, I assure you that it was in fact a good thing. I’m going to provide the context that I was a third-year bachelor’s degree student and had the bright idea of doing the program that required taking six master’s courses and only one bachelor’s course. In my defense all of the master’s courses sounded really cool. They did in fact end up being really cool. Then there’s the other context of me being one of those unsufferable people who had never before had to calculate whether or not they would pass a class but instead what grade they needed on the final to get an A. I acknowledge that I am in fact the worst. However, no longer! Because I failed two of my seven classes.
If you didn’t already figure it out, I will state clearly that I was in way over my head. However, I was able to find the joy of learning that often sputters out in the whirlwind of assignments and projects mid-semester at Pitt. No one was checking if I learned the course content. No one tracked my class attendance. I had to be accountable to myself. I was able to maintain my interest and excitement for course content because, in the best way possible, there were no immediate consequences if I didn’t go to class and learn the content. So, when I did show up, even as class numbers dropped linearly with the progress of the semester, I was able to connect better with my fellow students and my professors because we were all making the decision to show up.
Also, if you didn’t guess from my previous description of myself, I am a recovering perfectionist. I had never failed a course in my life. I had never been discombobulated in a classroom before. Second semester freshman year at Pitt, I thought it was the end of the world when I got my first A- and said goodbye to my 4.0 GPA. I think that version of me would have passed out if I told them that I failed not one class but two. Even now, it’s something that’s hard for me to be proud of instead of feeling shame. Yes, I failed two classes in my time abroad, but more importantly, I succeeded and occasionally excelled in five master’s courses. More importantly, I made lifelong friends. I had more firsts than I can count. I loved every one of my courses, even the ones I failed.
My advice, do hard things. Fail those hard things. Learn to love them. Learn to love failing because it’s inevitable. You might not love them at first because failing sucks. But, to me at least, it feels better to fail something difficult than to coast and never challenge myself. To fail is to grow. So, go fail some things.
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