26A - Celebrating Failure
- A time I failed was when I took my 2nd calculus 2 exam. It was the Thursday night before Spring Break. I didn't have class on Friday so you can imagine I was eager to get the exam over with. I studied quite a bit for the exam, but I'll admit I wasn't as good at these topics compared to the first exam. The first exam was a combination of advanced integral topics, problems I actually find very satisfying to complete so that was a breeze for me. However Exam 2 was a multitude of series problems with tests for convergence and divergence. I never truly understood why it never clicked for me on this exam. Being such a vastly different topic from integration I was pretty lost at times. Needless to say I didn't receive a score I was happy with. Granted, out of everyone in my group, another student and I had the highest scores, but I just wasn't happy with that. Exam 3 is coming up this Thursday, it's going to be a combination of Power/Taylor/Maclaurin series' (essentially complex Exam 2 problems), Parametrics, and Polarity.
- I think what I learned is that I need to start much earlier when practicing the problems for the exams. I would usually start a few days before. Whereas at this point I've already done a lot of work, and I feel more confident for this exam.
- Failure is an amazing tool, but it sucks when it happens to you. Failure can be very helpful as it can behave like a wake up call, it tells you whatever you're doing isn't working, and you need to innovate. I often analyze my failures in this way, what did I do that made this unsuccessful? I try my absolute best to view failure through optimistic eyes. As many entrepreneurs have to, this mindset is vital and applicable to anything. Obviously, UF losing a football game is incredibly frustrating, but I try to be a good sport where I can. This class further enforced to view my failures as something being wrong with my methods. Look as it like a flaw in a business' methods, or like a chink in one's armor.
Zach, I too wrote about an exam on which I did not do as well as I would normally and you are right, it does suck. Of course, the best of us learn from these things and make sure not to make the same mistake twice, so I am certain you will step up and crush your next time at the plate.
ReplyDeleteHi Zach,
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely an area that we can all relate with as we are all students, and it's great that you use these failures as wake up calls to learn from your past experiences. It's important to stay optimistic and to not let one failure keep you down.
Zach, I totally understand how you feel when you're talking about how it feels to fail, but there is usually something you can learn from it. In your case it was learning how to study in a more efficient way so that you can be more prepared for your exams. I know that each time I fail I usually learn something valuable from it.
ReplyDeleteHey Zach,
ReplyDeleteI personally was able to relate a lot to your post about celebrating failure. In fact, I wrote about a poor exam performance myself. I agree that failure is a great tool for success. It is impossible to truly understand what you want to acheive or why you want to acheive it until you fail to do so.