How To Fail Miserably, Then Succeed In College
You are about to read an excerpt from the “story” of a college freshman in the fall of 2000. The story begins one cold Saturday night in October, when he found himself in an argument with his ex-girlfriend. The argument stemmed from his feelings that she had shunned him when he needed somebody he could trust to help him get adjusted to college.
************************************************
“I don’t know what you’re so worried about,” she accused, “I mean, yeah, I can see you’ve got a few problems, but it’s not like you can’t overcome it. You don’t need me. You’ve got your fraternity brothers and your friends and your family. It’s not like you’re alone.”
“I’m failing my classes. I’m away from my family, my best friend is 2,000 miles away, and I live in a house full of guys who are supposed to be my brothers, but I can’t talk to them because they don’t know me and I don’t trust them.” His voice began to break as the bleakness of his situation overtook him. “I don’t know anybody here well enough to be able to talk to them. None of these people understand me. I have never been so alone in all my life.”
There, he had said it. For the two and a half months he’d been away at college something had been eating at him. As he sat there, drunk, crying and in the midst of yet another horrible fight with his ex-girlfriend, he finally realized what it was: He was alone, and he was a failure. College, and indeed his entire life, wasn’t at all what he thought it would be. The sudden realization had hit him so hard that it swiftly reduced him to tears.
************************************************
Listen well, high school seniors, prospective and current college students alike. All who are, were, or will be enrolled in college, hear me now. All of you who have seen the movies, read the publicity pamphlets or heard the stories about college, gather ‘round. The story of our lonely freshman is non-fiction. That was me, and more importantly, it could be you.
If you’re not careful, you too might be blindsided by the horrible realization that you’ve squandered away your dreams of college bliss because you had the wrong expectations. I was seduced by the bright, pretty pictures and funny stories about college. I thought I was coming into the land of milk and honey, where life was all fun and games and nobody had a care in the world. It turned out that college was just like the rest of life: If in your collegiate experience you give nothing, you will get nothing. You, the student, cannot expect college to immediately be the way it is in Hollywood, in your big brother’s crazy stories, or in the publicity packets. I have seen the error of my former ways and mastered the art that is the collegiate experience. I have learned how to use the right mindset and output of effort to turn college into the beautiful place I imagined it to be, and be successful at the same time. Lucky for you, I’m about to tell you how on that October night, I began learning the secret of college prosperity.
Once sober and composed, I asked myself the inevitable question: “Where did I go wrong?” Truth be told, my college career was all but doomed well before it began. After conducting my (and I use the term loosely) “search” of the nation’s finest Pre-Veterinary programs, I finally decided that I didn’t want to be a Veterinarian at all. I had no idea what I wanted to be. I settled for enrolling at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where I would pursue a major in, as I was fond of saying, “Fermented beverage consumption with a minor in freelance women’s studies.” The real joke in this statement lay in the fact that at some subconscious level, I believed it. After all, in every movie I’d seen about college, hadn’t there been great parties, pranks and sexual fiascos going on at all hours of all days? In all the stories I’d heard, hadn’t the antics and crazy goings-on of drunken buddies been the stuff that makes college “the time of your life”? Didn’t the pamphlets on college life in general and Greek life in particular show that this would be the friend-makin’est, resume-buildin’est, Frisbee-tossin’est best time this side of the Rio Grande?
Oh indeed, college was all this and more…or so I had come to believe. It would be the best time of my life! I’d party, I’d fraternize, I’d toss a football around on the front lawn of my frat, and surely this would bring me countless beautiful and promiscuous women, not to mention a sparkling GPA. In my mental college preview I had not included academics, but rather preferred to assume that the grades would all just fall into place. Somewhere along the line I decided to be a Pre-Med major. The way I figured, before I knew it, I’d be a rich doctor just like George Clooney, and I’d refer to my time at the University as the “good old days.”
It took two months for this sparkling image of the sunny, khaki-pants paradise to lose its luster. It became rapidly apparent that while my outlook on college glimmered, it was not gold. My grades were falling…but not into place, and while I had been plenty successful at getting drunk and it was true that I’d spent a goodly portion of time throwing a football around the front lawn of my fraternity house, for some baffling reason this had failed to bring the boundless happiness and droves of ladies the movies had promised me. I couldn’t throw the football forever, and when the Friday night buzz wore off and alcohol’s depressive effects began to take hold, I needed a source of pride and confidence as a fallback. When those were in short supply, I needed a close friend and confidante to help me straighten things out again. My binge drinking, reclusiveness and class skipping, however, had brought none of these.
College became a gray, oppressive hell from which I could not escape. I gave up all hope of having a good time and became just another face in the crowd. I gave nothing, and in turn, I got nothing. Bad grades turned into worse grades, and ignorant expectations about college gave way to disillusionment and depression. To make a long story short, my first year of college did not see me throw off the burden of increased academic rigors and social pressures. I failed or dropped most of my classes and was placed on level-one academic probation after my first semester of school. After another semester of poor grades and borderline alcoholism, I was on level-two academic probation and certifiably depressed. By the time finals were over, I was 90% sure that upon learning of my scholastic folly, my dad would evict me from the house. I went home for the summer fully expecting that I would be kicked out of my home and forced to join the army while I attempted to figure out what to do with my life. The logic of the course I was on would have dictated that I would slide further into a depressed, pathetic existence. It was then, however, that something unusual happened.
I was leaving my Trigonometry final, and the clouds began to pour down a cold, soaking rain. Over the course of the ten minute walk, I evaluated my life: I had just failed my last final, and my scholastic “efforts” would yield a 1.8 GPA. I was single and lonely, and had been the entire year. I didn’t like my fraternity, I didn’t like my school, and I didn’t like myself. On top of that, I was cold and soaking wet. Some people would have jumped into the creek to drown with the flash flood. Not me. A strange little smile came to my face and somewhere inside my head, that little voice we all have said, “You know what? Fuck this. It’s not going to be like this any more. It changes here, and it changes now.” I decided that I wasn’t going to be depressed about my life any longer. Quite simply, my life sucked, and it was nobody’s fault but my own. The whole scenario reminded me of a motivational speaker I had once heard. The man had slipped into depression after losing his right arm in a farming accident. He related some agricultural wisdom his father had relayed to him at the time.“Son, sometimes life dumps a load of shit on you. When that happens, you have two choices: One is that you can sit there in all that shit and cry and pity yourself, but you’ll still be surrounded by shit and you’ll look and smell shitty to yourself and everyone else. Everything around you will still be shit. The other option is that you can get up, clean yourself off, and use that load of shit like fertilizer to make your life grow.”
Granted, it was a blunt and somewhat vulgar bit of advice, but suddenly it made a world of sense to me. I vowed that I would rise up, clean my life off and start growing. From that time on, I was going to quit pitying myself and wasting my time. I was going to stop treating every minor setback like a major tragedy. I was going to savor the good times, and dispense with the bad. I would approach each new challenge with the attitude that even if I didn’t conquer it, damn it, I would give it my best shot and learn something from the experience. I returned home that May with an inward happiness and an irrepressible sense of optimism. My friends and family were taken aback by change in my attitude. Immediately it began to change my life. Within a month I had a fun job, I was getting into good physical shape, and I had a beautiful girlfriend. Those who knew me for my self-pity and laziness were shocked. Sensing that my newfound outlook on life was an indicator of good things to come, my dad said he would allow me another semester at college to see if I got it right. I spent the happiest summer of my life that year, and when I came back to Lincoln in August, college once again sparkled with promise and opportunity.
Over the summer, the idiots living in my fraternity house managed to lose our lease, but I found that I didn’t really care. I moved into the dorms and didn’t miss a beat. I strolled to and from classes with a smile on my face and a groove in my step. I genuinely enjoyed studying and learning the subject matter of my courses, which lead to good grades in my new general studies major. I quickly made friends in my dorm and in my classes. Any one of these things by itself was more than I had accomplished in the entire 2000-2001 academic year. Most of them were accomplished within a few weeks. I still partied and had plenty of recreation, but I found that these things were far more enjoyable when they felt deserved and when I was already happy with the way my life was going. I was giving everything I had, and I was getting a lot in return.
My optimism and dedication spawned success. My grade point average rose steeply. Soon, instead of a 1.2 sitting in the GPA column of my grade report, there was a 3.5. My achievements brought me happiness and optimism, which when paired with continuing dedication produced more success. I had an entirely new outlook on life. I was no longer the lazy, melodramatic high school kid who wasted an entire year getting drunk and playing Playstation. I was an actual college student who went to his classes and passed his tests. I earned my celebration, which made partying that much more enjoyable. I had a good attitude and a magnetic personality for the first time in my life. Suddenly college was that place full of great times and funny stories and I could enjoy partying and hanging out with my friends because I knew I deserved it.
College life can be great if you know how to make it happen. You will flourish if you promise yourself that you will put your best effort into everything you do, and not let failures or unexpected problems ruin your will to succeed. Work hard, and by doing that you give yourself good reason to play hard, and that playing is what makes college the Frisbee-tossin’ good time you read about in those pamphlets. It took me a year to learn that celebration without cause is not what college is all about. College is about doing what it takes to earn your happiness, and then celebrating that happiness. That’s the moral of my story. I wish you luck in writing yours.
************************************************
“I don’t know what you’re so worried about,” she accused, “I mean, yeah, I can see you’ve got a few problems, but it’s not like you can’t overcome it. You don’t need me. You’ve got your fraternity brothers and your friends and your family. It’s not like you’re alone.”
“I’m failing my classes. I’m away from my family, my best friend is 2,000 miles away, and I live in a house full of guys who are supposed to be my brothers, but I can’t talk to them because they don’t know me and I don’t trust them.” His voice began to break as the bleakness of his situation overtook him. “I don’t know anybody here well enough to be able to talk to them. None of these people understand me. I have never been so alone in all my life.”
There, he had said it. For the two and a half months he’d been away at college something had been eating at him. As he sat there, drunk, crying and in the midst of yet another horrible fight with his ex-girlfriend, he finally realized what it was: He was alone, and he was a failure. College, and indeed his entire life, wasn’t at all what he thought it would be. The sudden realization had hit him so hard that it swiftly reduced him to tears.
************************************************
Listen well, high school seniors, prospective and current college students alike. All who are, were, or will be enrolled in college, hear me now. All of you who have seen the movies, read the publicity pamphlets or heard the stories about college, gather ‘round. The story of our lonely freshman is non-fiction. That was me, and more importantly, it could be you.
If you’re not careful, you too might be blindsided by the horrible realization that you’ve squandered away your dreams of college bliss because you had the wrong expectations. I was seduced by the bright, pretty pictures and funny stories about college. I thought I was coming into the land of milk and honey, where life was all fun and games and nobody had a care in the world. It turned out that college was just like the rest of life: If in your collegiate experience you give nothing, you will get nothing. You, the student, cannot expect college to immediately be the way it is in Hollywood, in your big brother’s crazy stories, or in the publicity packets. I have seen the error of my former ways and mastered the art that is the collegiate experience. I have learned how to use the right mindset and output of effort to turn college into the beautiful place I imagined it to be, and be successful at the same time. Lucky for you, I’m about to tell you how on that October night, I began learning the secret of college prosperity.
Once sober and composed, I asked myself the inevitable question: “Where did I go wrong?” Truth be told, my college career was all but doomed well before it began. After conducting my (and I use the term loosely) “search” of the nation’s finest Pre-Veterinary programs, I finally decided that I didn’t want to be a Veterinarian at all. I had no idea what I wanted to be. I settled for enrolling at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where I would pursue a major in, as I was fond of saying, “Fermented beverage consumption with a minor in freelance women’s studies.” The real joke in this statement lay in the fact that at some subconscious level, I believed it. After all, in every movie I’d seen about college, hadn’t there been great parties, pranks and sexual fiascos going on at all hours of all days? In all the stories I’d heard, hadn’t the antics and crazy goings-on of drunken buddies been the stuff that makes college “the time of your life”? Didn’t the pamphlets on college life in general and Greek life in particular show that this would be the friend-makin’est, resume-buildin’est, Frisbee-tossin’est best time this side of the Rio Grande?
Oh indeed, college was all this and more…or so I had come to believe. It would be the best time of my life! I’d party, I’d fraternize, I’d toss a football around on the front lawn of my frat, and surely this would bring me countless beautiful and promiscuous women, not to mention a sparkling GPA. In my mental college preview I had not included academics, but rather preferred to assume that the grades would all just fall into place. Somewhere along the line I decided to be a Pre-Med major. The way I figured, before I knew it, I’d be a rich doctor just like George Clooney, and I’d refer to my time at the University as the “good old days.”
It took two months for this sparkling image of the sunny, khaki-pants paradise to lose its luster. It became rapidly apparent that while my outlook on college glimmered, it was not gold. My grades were falling…but not into place, and while I had been plenty successful at getting drunk and it was true that I’d spent a goodly portion of time throwing a football around the front lawn of my fraternity house, for some baffling reason this had failed to bring the boundless happiness and droves of ladies the movies had promised me. I couldn’t throw the football forever, and when the Friday night buzz wore off and alcohol’s depressive effects began to take hold, I needed a source of pride and confidence as a fallback. When those were in short supply, I needed a close friend and confidante to help me straighten things out again. My binge drinking, reclusiveness and class skipping, however, had brought none of these.
College became a gray, oppressive hell from which I could not escape. I gave up all hope of having a good time and became just another face in the crowd. I gave nothing, and in turn, I got nothing. Bad grades turned into worse grades, and ignorant expectations about college gave way to disillusionment and depression. To make a long story short, my first year of college did not see me throw off the burden of increased academic rigors and social pressures. I failed or dropped most of my classes and was placed on level-one academic probation after my first semester of school. After another semester of poor grades and borderline alcoholism, I was on level-two academic probation and certifiably depressed. By the time finals were over, I was 90% sure that upon learning of my scholastic folly, my dad would evict me from the house. I went home for the summer fully expecting that I would be kicked out of my home and forced to join the army while I attempted to figure out what to do with my life. The logic of the course I was on would have dictated that I would slide further into a depressed, pathetic existence. It was then, however, that something unusual happened.
I was leaving my Trigonometry final, and the clouds began to pour down a cold, soaking rain. Over the course of the ten minute walk, I evaluated my life: I had just failed my last final, and my scholastic “efforts” would yield a 1.8 GPA. I was single and lonely, and had been the entire year. I didn’t like my fraternity, I didn’t like my school, and I didn’t like myself. On top of that, I was cold and soaking wet. Some people would have jumped into the creek to drown with the flash flood. Not me. A strange little smile came to my face and somewhere inside my head, that little voice we all have said, “You know what? Fuck this. It’s not going to be like this any more. It changes here, and it changes now.” I decided that I wasn’t going to be depressed about my life any longer. Quite simply, my life sucked, and it was nobody’s fault but my own. The whole scenario reminded me of a motivational speaker I had once heard. The man had slipped into depression after losing his right arm in a farming accident. He related some agricultural wisdom his father had relayed to him at the time.“Son, sometimes life dumps a load of shit on you. When that happens, you have two choices: One is that you can sit there in all that shit and cry and pity yourself, but you’ll still be surrounded by shit and you’ll look and smell shitty to yourself and everyone else. Everything around you will still be shit. The other option is that you can get up, clean yourself off, and use that load of shit like fertilizer to make your life grow.”
Granted, it was a blunt and somewhat vulgar bit of advice, but suddenly it made a world of sense to me. I vowed that I would rise up, clean my life off and start growing. From that time on, I was going to quit pitying myself and wasting my time. I was going to stop treating every minor setback like a major tragedy. I was going to savor the good times, and dispense with the bad. I would approach each new challenge with the attitude that even if I didn’t conquer it, damn it, I would give it my best shot and learn something from the experience. I returned home that May with an inward happiness and an irrepressible sense of optimism. My friends and family were taken aback by change in my attitude. Immediately it began to change my life. Within a month I had a fun job, I was getting into good physical shape, and I had a beautiful girlfriend. Those who knew me for my self-pity and laziness were shocked. Sensing that my newfound outlook on life was an indicator of good things to come, my dad said he would allow me another semester at college to see if I got it right. I spent the happiest summer of my life that year, and when I came back to Lincoln in August, college once again sparkled with promise and opportunity.
Over the summer, the idiots living in my fraternity house managed to lose our lease, but I found that I didn’t really care. I moved into the dorms and didn’t miss a beat. I strolled to and from classes with a smile on my face and a groove in my step. I genuinely enjoyed studying and learning the subject matter of my courses, which lead to good grades in my new general studies major. I quickly made friends in my dorm and in my classes. Any one of these things by itself was more than I had accomplished in the entire 2000-2001 academic year. Most of them were accomplished within a few weeks. I still partied and had plenty of recreation, but I found that these things were far more enjoyable when they felt deserved and when I was already happy with the way my life was going. I was giving everything I had, and I was getting a lot in return.
My optimism and dedication spawned success. My grade point average rose steeply. Soon, instead of a 1.2 sitting in the GPA column of my grade report, there was a 3.5. My achievements brought me happiness and optimism, which when paired with continuing dedication produced more success. I had an entirely new outlook on life. I was no longer the lazy, melodramatic high school kid who wasted an entire year getting drunk and playing Playstation. I was an actual college student who went to his classes and passed his tests. I earned my celebration, which made partying that much more enjoyable. I had a good attitude and a magnetic personality for the first time in my life. Suddenly college was that place full of great times and funny stories and I could enjoy partying and hanging out with my friends because I knew I deserved it.
College life can be great if you know how to make it happen. You will flourish if you promise yourself that you will put your best effort into everything you do, and not let failures or unexpected problems ruin your will to succeed. Work hard, and by doing that you give yourself good reason to play hard, and that playing is what makes college the Frisbee-tossin’ good time you read about in those pamphlets. It took me a year to learn that celebration without cause is not what college is all about. College is about doing what it takes to earn your happiness, and then celebrating that happiness. That’s the moral of my story. I wish you luck in writing yours.
posted by Beav at 7:21 PM
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