Maybe it's just because I bombed a fucking trig test I could have sworn I would get an A on earlier this morning, but what the fuck did you guys do whenever you walk out of a classroom thinking "i'm never going to make it in college"
I WANT to make it, obviously, I just get depressed and sometimes angry thinking about shit like this
Everyone bombs a test at some point. It's okay. So maybe the first important thing to realize is that everyone--everyone--screws up at some point and at multiple points.
I know that can be hard to believe, or not carry much impact, if you've just had the experience of walking out of a classroom furious at yourself for failing a test, so let me add some color to it.
For some time the military had what was known, disparagingly, as a zero-defects culture. There was a belief that any mistake would cost an officer his career, and so the emphasis became to avoid mistakes at all costs. And, of course, the real cost turned out to be in the quality of leadership. No mistakes meant no learning, and it meant great officers leaving early. They corrected it, with speed, because they realized the importance of allowing mistakes to happen; in fact the evaluations of junior officers in some branches are expunged completely at a certain point, whether they are good or bad.
Chester Nimitz, on his first command of a destroyer, he managed to run the ship aground. He was court-martialed, found guilty of neglect of duty, reprimanded, and shortly relieved of command.
30 years later he commanded the US Pacific Fleet during World War II, and eventually was the US signatory to the Japanese surrender on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay
There is an enormous number of similar examples.
Now, you didn't run a ship aground, and you're not going to be court-martialed. You failed a test. It happens. It's okay. It does NOT mean you will fail at college, or anything else.
The thing to do now is learn. There is immense value in mistakes, and the key is being brave enough, and confident enough, to find that value, and apply it.
What went wrong on the test? It could be more than one thing. Perhaps your preparation was deeply flawed. Perhaps you tried to cram too much studying and learning into too short a period of time, not doing the work daily. These are things that can be fixed.
Perhaps the subject material is confusing? There are resources for that as well. Make use of your school's tutors, and your professor's office hours.
Finally, and you'll hate this but do it anyway, take the test again on your own. In doing so you'll see more clearly where and how you went wrong, and importantly you'll learn whatever material you didn't know before.
That you were discouraged at your grade simply means that your academic performance is important to you. That's not a bad thing. You just need to understand better the role of mistakes in learning, and to apply them. Mistakes are a normal part of life, and getting furious at yourself, and discouraged, just isn't useful at all. Just smile, think "all right motherfucker, I guess we've got a game now," and go forward.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
