26A- Celebrating Failure

My story of failure comes in the form of the Business Finance class at UF. It is widely regarded as the absolute hardest business class a student will have to take to graduate from the Warrington College of Business. The professor even provides a pass option at the beginning of the course that, should a student do all of the extra credit, all of the practice exams, and all of the exams, taking as much time as allowed, and average above a 40%, a student can pass the class with a D-, which is technically passing for the business school, but still damaging to the GPA and resume.

The class was 6 weeks long, one exam every two weeks. For the first exam, I scored a 50%, which was not considered bad for the class. I did a lot of preparation. I watched lecture, I used tutoring services, and I studied for days leading up to the test. For the second exam I wanted to knock it out of the park. I studied for the two weeks leading up to the exam and when faced with the test, I was clueless. I was stunned at how I knew so little about the applications of the content I had learned. I scored a 35%. This put me in a spot of trouble, because I wanted to get a good grade in the class. This seemed almost impossible now, but I really put my nose in the lessons and really learned the content. I was confident that I could answer any question thrown at me based on all of my practice. I ended up getting a 45% on the final, ending the class with the pass option. I was heartbroken, but content having passed the hardest class. I knew people that had to take the class over and over again, so while I knew this was not a real tragedy for me, it was not a victory.

From the class I learned that there are some things that just need a different teacher. I should have gone beyond just the lectures of the professor and the tutors I was paying for because, if I hadn’t gotten the content the first two times, I was not going to get it from them the third.

Failure is not as great of a teacher as people think it is. One part of me, when I failed the second exam, thought that if I just tried harder, I could pass. A part of me still thinks that, not in terms of Finance class, but in life. I am not a person who wants to move laterally and uproot what has worked for me in the past to succeed in one part of a class. Upon finding out my attempt to do better had failed, I was miserable. But since then, my grades have never been better, partially because the stress of the class is gone, and I have felt much healthier. I now do most of my assignments for online classes two weeks in advance when I can, to stay ahead and make sure that I do not feel that stress that made me uncomfortable in Finance. Entrepreneurship class has not really affected how I think about failure. Edison was a hack and an animal abuser, so I do not respect his famous remark about failure, but I think that failures outside of a venture can positively affect how aware an entrepreneur is about their own shortcomings and decisions for an opportunity.