Dare To Fail

[Orglethorp]

I survived my childhood by shutting stuff out and pretending everything was okay. Unfortunately it seems that my brain has learned that this is a good technique to handle stress of any kind. Over the past 9 years of working my way through PTSD while moving on with my life, studying a million different things in university, etc. etc., I go through period where my priorities shift, and for some reason, the direct result is that my brain stops letting me to higher mathematics. That part that lets me understand and succeed in courses involving advanced calculus and physics goes on strike. It shuts down, puts up an invisible brick wall, and encourages me to ignore it.

My life priorities have shifted. This will be my last semester for a while, because I'm so exhausted with university that my heart isn't in it right now, and I want to take some time away from it. I've done it before, and when I return I do so much better. Peter and I are preparing to start our family, and I'm so happy and excited about that! The bright, warm, secure future I wasn't sure I would have is finally here, and building our first home and welcoming our first child into the world is only going to solidify this in my mind.

There's only one problem. I've still got a month of classes and some final exams left to complete before this happens.

I have a programming course, which is going toward my current major and is going quite well with minimal effort because I've already done it in a different language (programming language). All I have to do is read the slides from the lectures before each test to refresh my memory on the topics, and I'm on track.

I have a psychology course, which is going toward my current minor, and it's so fascinating that I don't mind pushing myself to do the work. It's forensic psychology! This week we're being jurors in a fake case (with a video skit that was recorded in the actual provincial supreme court house!) and we're relying on what we know about psychology and about the justice system to come to a verdict without any easy evidence to point at. It's fun!

...and then there's my advanced calculus course. It's required for the degree in general; I didn't choose it. I did choose the professor, because I've done courses with him before, I respect him, and I'm not just a number in his class. He spotted me on campus the other week, out of context, and knew my name. Well, he called me Jennifer rather than Jenna, but still. It wasn't Ms [last name]. It wasn't my student number. It wasn't a polite nod of vague recognition. He knows my name, he knows when I'm present in his class and when I'm not. A couple years ago he tried to convince me to switch majors because he thinks I could do great things with a pure maths degree.

But my higher maths brain has turned off. The door has been locked and the key has been hidden, and I don't care that I can't find it. I really, really don't. I care about letting this professor down. I care about my mother finding out when the semester ends that I've failed a class I should have been able to ace.

The last time this happened to me, with the higher maths part of my brain running away on me, I was so upset about the possibility of failing that my therapist at the time dared me to let myself fail. He dared me to walk away, stop going to class, miss the final. I did. I survived. My GPA survived. I re-took the class a few semesters later and aced it.

I want to do that now. I have a second midterm in that class tomorrow that I'm not prepared for, and I can't bring myself to open my text book. I want to let myself get wrapped up in some other activity tomorrow afternoon, not notice what time it is until the exam's been going on for 9 minutes, shrug it off and not go.

The trouble is I'm afraid of facing that professor if I do that. I don't want to explain why I didn't write it.

I have a job programming research tools for one of the profs who's on a teaching sabbatical. I don't want to run into the prof who's class I'm going to fail while I'm in the math building working for the other prof and have my employer prof overhear my class prof asking about the test. My employer prof keeps encouraging me to use the work I'm doing for him as an honours thesis, and I haven't worked up the courage to tell him I have no intention of even being enrolled in the fall.

I don't know what to do with myself.

 

[jaccat]

I had a similar problem at school. Right in the middle of taking my college exams my brain took the executive decusion to try and fail them. For me it was because I was trying to run away from the future. I had to take the exam, but I found myself sitting in a hall staring at a test paper I had no desire to complete, fighting an inner war with myself whether purposefully failing it and disappointing my tutors faith in me was going to be forgivable vs. trying my best to complete it against all my desires. I completed the test but didn't get the results I should have because my heart wasn't in it. Fourteen years later I still regret it. I still feel bad about letting my tutors down, I still wish I had been able to explain something of what happened to them.

Is there any way you can speak to your tutor, just to tell him that you're not in the right place now, and you know if you push it you are going to disappoint yourself as well as him? I'm sure, if he does care about you, he would rather see you take time out and come back to it refreshed and able to do your best, rather than attempting it with burnout.

 

[Orglethorp]

I'm not sure if tutor and professor mean different things in the UK than they do in North America, but a professor (which is what this guy is) stands at the front of a lecture hall and instructs a room full of students, assigns work but has someone else grade it, and has very little to do with individual students unless the student chooses to go to the professor (which I never have). The encouragement years ago to switch to a math major was in the form of an email sent to anyone who scored above 90% on the final exam in first year calculus courses. I think he knows my name because he hands back midterms person by person instead of letting us collect them from piles so that no one sees others' exam scores, and he's unusually good at remembering names. A tutor, on the other hand, is someone who meets with students one on one or in a small group and works on what the student asks to work for the purpose of performing better in exams. They're usually sought out and paid privately by the students, not arrange by the school, and have nothing to do with teaching a course.

What worries me about letting myself fail this course is not disappointing a tutor, but rather having someone actually notice and (probably) disapprove of my choice to walk away from something that I (technically) can do. I'm not giving it up forever. I will come back and do this some day. I just really need a break, and I feel like I'm disappointing people by doing what I need to do for my own sake.

 

[jaccat]

Do you care what he thinks about you?

 

[Orglethorp]

I don't know if he does think anything of me other than the knowledge that I'm a student in his class who did well in first year. He seems to be a genuinely nice man and he's taken the time to remember my name, so suddenly I feel noticed in a see of students that I've otherwise blended into this year, and it comes at a time when I'm questioning whether or not I should be here right now.

My mother is a teacher, so I grew up spending time on campus before and after hours when only the teachers and the other teachers' kids were there. They all knew my name whether they taught me or not, and I knew their first names (but never dared address them so casually). I was always the smart kid who never disappointed anyone. I carried that through into high school and on into university with me. When a university professor who has no obligation to get personal with the students takes the time to remember my name, I feel like that kid who all the teachers know and think they can expect great things from.

I've learned to let myself fail and be okay with it. I haven't learned to let go of what the teacher thinks. I'm afraid of what I will think he might be thinking when he sees me next. I don't know if he thinks anything of me, but historically the ones that do know my name do have an opinion on my success, and I don't like knowing that I might be letting them down.

I'm also struggling with knowing that what I'm doing with my life goes against what my mother and grandmother think I should be doing. They love Peter, they're happy for me, but they want me to finish this degree before I become a mother. They don't understand that I've lost my motivation to be student right now. They keep asking if I'd consider taking a correspondence course in September so I'm not completely "not a student" next year, and they only grudgingly accept that I can't when I point out that the only courses I still need are only offered as in-person lectures.

Forcing myself to complete this degree first is not right for me. I'm unhappy. I've lost my focus. I want to take time to focus on my life with Peter and starting our family. I'm ready to be a mother and a wife, and I'd like the chance to focus on this and only this for a while.

I'm just so caught up in thinking about the people who think I should be finishing this degree. My mother and grandmother, my professors, the professor I'm working for who wants me to do an honours thesis.

 

[Eleanor]

Wrong answer on failing the class. Are you seeing a T? Or a psychiatrist. Actually you need a psychiatrist or MD to write you a note. Get them to write you a note and either late withdraw or take an incomplete. When you go back to school finish the class. You don't need to explain much to the prof. The note will do it. Just tell them that circumstances in your personal life plus a health limitation mean you have to reduce your commitments at the moment. You know you can ace this course, just not right now.

Don't make it more complicated than it is.

What your family thinks about you not finishing right now or not is a wholly separate issue.

 

[The Albatross]

For what it's worth I had the aptitude but my brain wouldn't do math either. Glad to hear from you and am happy for you and to read that you are considering starting a family.