Unfortunately, I’ve started to think dropping out of organic chemistry is a University of Florida canon event. Somewhere among the bright blue Study Edge packets and the endless memorization of reaction mechanisms, there’s a pre-med student realizing that maybe this isn’t exactly what they signed up for.
I know that because I was this student.
Two years ago, I was a microbiology major. I had plans, ambitions, and I had somehow convinced myself that I could scrape my way into medical school with high C’s and an unscathed attitude. Chemistry 1 was a breeze, and Chemistry 2 humbled me to my core. Organic Chemistry was nothing I couldn’t handle. Or at least that’s what I thought.
Actually, I got a 92% on my first orgo exam. That’s an A-! You could consider me officially lulled into a false sense of security.Â
A few weeks later, when exam two rolled around, things had started to look much less promising. I crammed, stressed, and convinced myself that I could pull it together in 48 hours. In actuality, I found myself having a full-blown internal breakdown outside the lecture hall 10 minutes before the exam started.
I ended up having to take the exam later during office hours, and honestly, that wasn’t even the worst part.
When I got my grade back, I was shocked to learn that I had gotten a whopping 12%. To clarify, that is a 12 out of 100. WITH partial credit. I wish I could report back that I handled this gracefully. I, in fact, did quite the opposite.
There was another breakdown, a week of questioning my intelligence and capabilities, and the realization that my academic future was not going to look exactly as I had been imagining for years.
So, I withdrew.
At the time, it was a much bigger decision than dropping one class. I was only a sophomore, but I had already spent enough time imagining my future as an M1 that changing directions felt akin to abandoning my hopes and dreams.
When you enter college dead set on a particular career or graduate program, every class is like a stepping stone to your future. You take the endless prerequisites and start telling people where you want to be 5 years post grad. At some point, your major starts to be less of a subject you’re studying and more of an identity you have to maintain.
And this is when withdrawing from organic chemistry feels like withdrawing from the future you promised yourself.
Spoiler alert: you can change your mind.
As obvious as this is, it felt anything but obvious to me at 19, staring at the grade that barely made it into double digits.Â
I had to figure out where I wanted the latter half of my college career to take me. I started thinking about what I enjoyed learning and what kind of work I could see myself doing long term.
That’s how I ended up in psychology. I’ve genuinely never been happier with my decision.
Since then, I’ve found exciting research and discovered professional pathways I didn’t even know existed. I’ve built a college life that feels much more like my own. None of this would have happened if I had stayed committed to a path simply because I had taken a few steps down it.
I am absolutely not suggesting that everyone struggling through orgo should immediately abandon STEM. If you love chemistry, biology, medicine, or whatever else led you to Keene-Flint Hall, keep going! Retake the class if you have to, abuse office hours, change your study habits, and give yourself a second chance.
There are so many brilliant future doctors and researchers who have struggled with the chemistry series. One terrible exam doesn’t determine your worth, and neither does a W on your transcript.
But, if you find yourself sitting in class realizing that you’re more attached to the idea of your future career than the work that it takes to get there, maybe it’s worth exploring what you really want.
Trust me, these four years of college fly by. One minute, you’re a bright-eyed freshman with a perfectly planned-out 4-year roadmap, and the next, you’re a sophomore crying over an exam and cultivating a new identity.
It is so easy to think that everyone else has it all figured out, especially at a university full of pre-medical students who seem to have their internships, clinical hours, and grad school applications planned out before they’re old enough to drink.
But the truth is, we’re all just figuring it out day by day.
Dropping orgo didn’t make me a worse student or a less-smart version of myself. It didn’t mean I’d wasted my first two years at college, although I wish I’d made the realization sooner. It definitely didn’t mean I was destined to be unsuccessful.
It just meant that I needed to find something that actually fit me.
So, to the UF student reading this before their orgo lecture, contemplating a withdrawal, questioning their major, or wondering how they’re going to rationalize their latest exam grade: I promise, there is a life after organic chemistry.
And if you’re a STEM girl who just needs to give orgo another shot, you can do it.
Sometimes, the most important thing you learn in college isn’t how to push through a difficult semester. It’s how to recognize when you’re trying to fit yourself into a future that doesn’t belong to you.
And sometimes, all it takes to figure that out is a 12% on an organic chemistry exam.