My first year of college was an utter failure. Literally – I flunked out.
I spent my freshman year at Tulane University culture-shocked and out-of-place, desperate to leave. I didn’t know anyone else who was on scholarship, I was taken aback by the virulent racism and sexism on campus, and I had an emotionally abusive boyfriend to boot. Among other things, when we broke up he had one of his frat brothers tape a used condom to my door under the word “whore” scrawled on my dry erase board. I stopped going to class shortly after.
So, the fact that I left at the end of the year was a mercy. And, as it turned out, failing was the best thing that possibly could have happened to me.
Doing poorly my first year of college was terrible; I felt stupid and unworthy. This feeling was exacerbated because I had attended a prestigious math and science public high school in New York where grades meant everything. But changing colleges – even though the move was forced and unplanned – set the stage for me to find my passion and, eventually, a career.
When I picked up the pieces after Tulane and enrolled in a state college in Albany, New York, I was still raw from my freshman year experience. I drank a lot, didn’t know what classes to take and generally felt lost. It wasn’t until I took my first women’s studies class – an introductory feminist course – that I found my footing.
Suddenly I could see the ways that everything from pop culture and politics devalued women, and I understood more fully that injustices weren’t random but systemic. Most importantly, however, I realized that there was nothing wrong with me. Nothing wrong with being loud or opinionated, nothing wrong with having a bit of potty-mouth. These were just characteristics not valued in women. It was simple, but revelatory.
Once the personal validation took hold, the broader political implications followed. I became active in campus causes, joined a women’s studies teaching collective and started to get good grades in my classes – and not just the feminist ones. Finding genuine enthusiasm for a topic – one that related so directly to the world around me – gave me a drive that I had never experienced before. And it hasn’t stopped since.
I went on to get a master’s degree in gender studies, work for several non-profit women’s organizations, teach college classes, and, yes, launch a writing career that started with founding a feminist blog. None of which would have happened if I hadn’t failed miserably at my first shot at adulthood.
I don’t recommend doing poorly as a road to success. I was lucky – and privileged – to be able to put my freshman year mistakes behind me. But for too many young people – especially those who are high-achieving – any failure is a disaster of epic proportions. It’s simply not true. We all mess up, we all fail in ways big and small. But those missteps don’t have to mean the end, and they can often mean a beginning – just not the one you had planned.
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