My First 'F' by Tealiyah

My First 'F' by Tealiyah - December 2024 Scholarship Essay

Taking care of yourself while attending college is not a struggle everyone has to experience. While I was not known to lack in the academic department, as it pertains to grades, I struggled to balance the life I had to live to be able to have a roof over my head with the life I had to live to receive good grades. During my time spent at Grambling State University, I maintained two jobs, an internship, and my presidential duties of the gardening club. With each of these things came their own challenges, but it all circled back to my academic experience. After class, I went straight to working at a child development center. After work, I headed over to my internship and after my internship, I went straight to my babysitting job. This was my life for the duration of obtaining my bachelor’s degree.

Balancing the side of my schedule that allowed me to provide for myself caused challenges within my academic experience. Managing papers, studying, and meeting deadlines while juggling outside tasks was difficult to say the least. This meant extremely late nights combined with early mornings and sometimes begging professors for extensions for projects that were due the same day. This experience led me to my first ‘F’ on a research paper.

This letter grade consumed my day and defined me for 12 hours. I say 12 hours because that is how long I let it sit until I reached out to my professor and let him know that I would be coming to his office. In his office, I did not describe the outside challenges that I was facing, instead I asked him what I did wrong. After this conversation, he gave me 1 hour to resubmit with the corrections for a better grade. Of course, this meant that I would still have a percentage deducted for submitting late, but it was better than the grade I had. This experience challenged me in new ways mentally, physically, and emotionally. I was not as good at balancing everything as I thought. My self-esteem took a hit because worrying about my future grades consumed me. I began to stress about the assignments due and how I would continue to work while managing my grades. I felt that I was failing in all realms of my life, but that was not true.

I was able to overcome this by focusing on my time management skills instead of drowning in my emotions. Having a planner that carefully outlined all assignments and places I had to be along with carving out more time for studying helped me turn my grades around. Quitting was not an option, so creativity had to take over. Not letting my grades suffer because of my circumstances was the best decision I made and I am proud to say that I came out stronger in the end.