Not all classes are created equal—some may be a total breeze while others are more challenging. Suffice to say, college is always going to be full of challenges. There’s always that one class that pushes the difficulty bar just past your limit.
You would think with the right persistence and hard work you’ll achieve the grade you want, right?
Well even with hard work, sometimes you don’t always get the grade you want, and that’s okay. I was faced with this reality during spring semester of my first year of college and oh man was that scary. But I got through it and so can you.
It was a new semester; I had taken on another six classes (crazy I know). I thought to myself, “Okay Rayonna, you know how difficult classes can be. Just remember to always try your best.” One of the best pieces of advice a student could have. My classes, for the most part, were fine, but there was one class that I was a little worried about it. It was a required course I had to take for my major. I knew I couldn’t mess this up.
Failing was not an option.
It was an audio and visual based class, now I may know a few things about taking pictures, but not much.
This was one of the few times that I was in a class and was completely clueless to the material at hand. All our projects made us go out into the city on and off campus to complete projects. It was definitely a new experience for me. I was learning the ins and outs of shooting and editing video.
I never said that I was good at it though. It was a struggle to edit videos and learn how to use editing software. Trust me there were plenty of times when I wanted to tug my hair out of frustration. Even though I had a project partner for help, I wanted to learn how to do it on my own. I quickly realized how long and tedious video editing can be.
Even after a few classes and projects, I was still struggling in class.
I just kept reminding myself to put in all my effort and try my best to get through it. Problems really started to flourish when it came around to filming our last two big projects. Maybe the universe was like, “Oh the semester is ending soon? Why don’t I just make things oh so difficult for you!”
We knew that it was practically unavoidable to have zero problems occur, but it’s nice to dream okay. It started when our recorded interviews weren’t loading properly, then the footage wouldn’t upload straight to the Google Drive. Literally, we had to send our video and photos through Snapchat, save them and then upload it to the Google Drive. I don’t know what was more work, compiling all our footage or editing it all together. It felt like eternity either way.
I would say that for me, the most challenging part of this class was indeed the last project. This was a two-minute video that had to be individually edited. I obviously knew this wasn’t going to be an easy endeavor for me. I’ll be honest—the thought of making a video by myself made me anxious.
I dragged my friend and project partner to the Tech Center on campus for an editing session. I kid you not, we were there for six hours and didn’t leave until 3 a.m. Oh man, we were brain dead and hungry by the end of it all. The whole time my friend was sitting in the chair taking nap intervals, while my partner and I were putting our videos together.
It felt as though I put my heart and soul into the project but still felt like it wasn’t good enough.
I encouraged myself to submit it regardless because I kept true to my initial advice—try your best, so I did.
Even with all that hard work and long nights, your grades may not always reflect all that work you put into it. I ended up with a C average for that class. Was it a little disappointing? Of course, but I knew it wouldn’t kill me. I passed and I got something out of this experience, to me that’s what matters most.
