Remember your last year of high school, how all your teachers kept stressing the difference between high school and post-secondary instructors, responsibilities, and workloads? In my experience, the professors turned out much more relaxed than I was expecting (for the most part), but they were right on the money when it came to workload and responsibilities. Fortunately, I already had good study habits and knew which methods were most effective for me, but my planning and organization still needed to take a step way up. Knowing how to study is useless if you don’t make time for it, and that’s a lot harder to do with the increased amount of content that comes along with university-level classes. In high school when I had a biology exam I studied for a few days before, in university I had to start studying closer to two weeks ahead of time. Math was a subject that took practice but came relatively easy to me until my first- and only– calculus class, which had me watching Khan Academy videos for hours and then crying at my kitchen table after failing yet another practice test. My takeaway from changes and experiences like this? That patience with yourself is one of the most important things to practice not just when you start post-secondary, but along your whole journey, no matter what that looks like for you.
During my first year of university, I was still living at home with relatively little bills and house responsibilities, a very part-time job, and the short commute to work and school that comes along with living in a smaller city. Being in such a fortunate situation made it easy to set boundaries for my school and personal lives and balance them in a healthy way. The rule I set for myself that benefitted me the most was that 9 pm was my cut-off for homework for the day. Past that, it was time for me to unwind, relax for a little, and get ready for bed. Since classes and work were my only other scheduling restrictions, it wasn’t too difficult to get what I needed to done and still find time to enjoy myself, so that rule rarely got broken except for in times of dire need. I did have to learn patience with myself in regards to the workload curve in this year, but the transition was nothing like when I moved away from home my second year and started living in Edmonton independently. This was a completely different learning curve; learning to manage not just my personal responsibilities but household ones as well, and this made setting aside adequate study time all the more difficult.
The year I moved, it was frustrating to see my grades drop due to the trouble I was having adjusting to this new juggling game, and I lost patience with myself. Near the end of the year, I was able to realize that the program I was in wasn’t quite the best fit for me which I’m sure contributed to my difficulties; nonetheless, I felt shaken and knew my confidence had fallen. This hung over me in my third year, as I tried to navigate doubting myself while trying to figure out what the right path for me was going forward. Choosing which direction to take was extremely difficult and I changed my mind many times over the course of the year. I applied to about three different programs because I repeatedly found myself settling for something I thought would be manageable and safe since I no longer trusted my passion or my abilities.
One day while I was on the Macewan website, I happened to come across a program I hadn’t known existed but instantly fell in love with: journalism. Finding, and starting this year, a program that spoke to me has made me feel like it’s my first year of university again, and allowing myself to feel excited rather than scared has been making a large impact on my confidence and attitude going into this year. There are factors I’ve decided to change in order to make things easier for myself, such as starting an earlier work schedule so I have more afternoon time for homework and tasks because I know that my productivity is very low in the mornings. Rather than do things the way I always have and be frustrated with myself for a sub-par performance within that frame, I’m being patient with myself and changing what I can to work with and possibly even improve this trait by getting used to doing more in the morning through work. While I’m looking forward to being challenged by a full course load again and seeing how I handle it, I’m also actively working on adjusting my mindset to understand that my academic performance is not a direct reflection of my passion or my abilities, and doesn’t make me less worthy of showing up and doing my best. I’m living in different circumstances than I was during my first year, so understanding that I will need to prioritize different things now is going to be key to being patient and understanding with myself and the results I see. Not being able to match the GPA you had when you were in high school, or only in your intro year does not mean that you are incapable of accomplishing your goal, or that you’re a bad student. It simply means that your circumstances have changed, and as long as you do your best to accommodate that without erasing yourself and your needs, you have nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve frequently quoted the phrase “It does not matter how slow you go, as long as you do not stop,” in humorous contexts but when it comes down to it, it’s a gentle and truthful notion that I’d like to encourage in others and hopefully accept in myself because as long as you show up and do the work you can, no matter how that looks, that’s everything.
So when you get frustrated with yourself, remember:
I deserve patience.
I deserve to be here.
I deserve to do my best for myself.
I deserve these things because I am a person, not just a letter on a grading scale.