I was a total loser
Hello! NPR wrote an article on the benefits of losing and I couldn’t wait to share it with you guys this week. Because I was a total loser at college. I had a 4.0 GPA in high school and got full rides to all the big local schools here in the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia). Instead of doing what everyone else was doing and instead of taking the easy, cheaper way, I went all the way out to Colorado Springs, CO to a tiny, private, liberal arts college. I’d never ever been to Colorado but a high school teacher thought I’d benefit from Colorado College’s block plan – taking one class at a time for 3.5weeks. We still took the standard 8 classes a year but the professors and students were able to totally focus on that one subject for the entire block. It was amazing! The mountains were beautiful! The teachers let us call them by their first names! But I struggled hard – I didn’t fit in with the trust fund kids, my grades were terrible, and I missed my home.Before you start feeling sorry for me, picture that 18year old kid: I was off on my own for the first time in my life and it sucked. But I had gone there for this exact reason – because it was nothing like I’d ever experienced before then. I got Cs in almost all of my psychology class – even abnormal psychology where I spent three uninterrupted weeks learning about criminals and mental illnesses. Since we didn’t have common core classes like state schools, I didn’t have to waste time in English and History classes. I took a wide variety of classes like Buddhism (pass/fail – loser!), Intro to Journalism-Crime Reporting, and Morality in War. I messed around with the Philosophy of Law, Physics, and Criminology/Sociology. Finally, in junior year, I’d landed in an anthropology class and the grades came up. Some of my favorites were Intro to Biological Anthropology, Human Osteology, and the Archaeology of Death. Even though I graduated with a solid 2.something GPA (LOSER!), I think back on this time very fondly. It was important to my development to try, fail, and try again. If I’d given up and gone home that first week, or after my first C grade, I might not have learned to pick myself up, to study harder, to keep trying until I won.Next week, I want to share the uphill battle from undergrad loser to Graduate Student of the Year!
Cheers,
Kat
