Good day to you all here in the inkwell community.
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Fear and failure are something that works hand in hand. When you give fear a chance to overcome your courage then I would say failure might be the next thing to come around. There are times we just have to keep to our stand and remain courageous about whatever we are doing and in the long run, we get to realize that we overcome our fears.
”We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes – understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success."
― Arianna Huffington
One thing that we are so uncertain about in life is the future. We never can tell what the future holds for us. The only things we can do is to predict, wish, hope, and dream about how the future would turn out to be and also work towards accomplishing them.
This is what is fearful of us. We sometimes dream of success but what if we fail? Those thoughts together bring along fear about the uncertainties. That’s life for us.
My story
It’s common in Nigerian universities the way students at times get to face a lot of challenges and obstacles with their studies. There are times when students have to undergo financial difficulties, and mental stress, and sometimes even face challenges from lecturers taking lectures and exams and even project supervisors.
We are all humans and we are different, our characters and our personalities differ. There are times when you meet with some people and you imagine if everyone in the world could be like those people then the world would have been a better place.
And there is some set of people you encounter that after little time with them, you pray God doesn’t create people like them again. If the world were to be filled with people like them, maybe the world would have turned the other way around.
My institution's faculty of agriculture runs differently, it is a five-year program compared to the normal four years course and also we have different departments but we won’t be divided into departments not until we get to our final year compared to other departments that their students are admitted to each department from the beginning of the session.
When I was in my second year, we had a course on agronomy and there was this particular lecturer that took the course. We were new to agronomy and other agricultural-related courses then. So we started with the introduction. This intro made us get interested in some courses then. So agronomy was a course I lost interest in. I prefer courses like animal production, home economics, and food science.
Our first class was held, and the lecturer in charge was a woman. Right from the beginning I never liked her classes at all. She doesn’t have that lecturing style. Anyways I managed to scale through. Then the next thing was when we had her exams. I hoped her exams would be way easier than her lectures. But to my greatest surprise, she came out different. The normal exams we had were 60 questions but her questions were 120 questions. 😂
Since then I never liked the woman and her course. And once you lose interest in lecturers you have lost interest in that course. Our results were out and I didn’t pass the course. Just a few marks above fail. We continued this agronomy course till our final year. And I never got a good grades in those courses. At some point, I had a carryover in her course.
I disliked her and her courses so much. I was happy when I got to my final year because I knew I won’t have any of her courses to deal with again. We were split into departments and I never dreamed of being in the agronomy department. But when the list came out I found my name in the agronomy department and my supervisor was that same woman I never got interested in. The woman I disliked and never got good grades in her courses. How did I even want to survive my projects?? And I still have to write my final year exams with her again.
The fear of failure 😨.
I was scared, fearful, and terrified about how I ended up with her. There are other lecturers I love and want to have my project with. I thought of changing my supervisor and if possible my department. But I asked myself what if I ended up with someone even worse??
I tried to play along with her and got more serious, focused, and dedicated to her courses. I read so hard but at some point, I felt I couldn’t go beyond my brain capacity. I never understood her courses.
I got my project topic from her and she told me she would be more interested in my topic than the others. Why me? Why must she be interested in it? Which means she would be giving my project full concentration. I already got to a point of no return. I can’t change my supervisor or my department. I had to face it heads. I was scared of failing and repeating my final as a spillover year.
Sleepless nights and restless days.
I couldn’t have a nice time for myself. Every day became a nightmare for me. I woke up and slept on my computer and in my journals. But something kept on inspiring me, I believed the journey of a thousand miles began with a step. So my days are surely numbered.
I did my best, I got sick for weeks on this project. I remembered how she rejected my first chapter more than five times. She would use her red pen on it and return it to me to start over. Chapter three was the same. She gave me a tough time with my analysis and practicals. She refused to show me how to go about my project work.
There was a day she told me she doesn’t care if I fail her courses. All she wants is for me to get her a good result from my project work because she would be publishing it. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I must have failed her course and had a spillover. I had to put additional effort into my project because it’s a six-unit course. If I failed her course I mustn’t fail her project too.
The result
Some days in August I rounded up my project work when my mates had already been binding and submitting theirs since May. There are a few more days until our convocation and we aren’t given access to see our final year results. All that would be displayed on our portal is whether you graduated or not.
I was scared to check it. All I could think of was those woman's words. I knew I tried my best and prayed for good luck. When I checked it. I finally got my name on the graduating list and I checked my project, and I got an excellent grade. I was so excited 😆 and I believed failure is not the opposite of success but a part of success.
