Confidence is such a nebulous thing - you can't lay claim to it or it will slip away like the morning haze. If you haven't guessed, this semester has been a rough one for me! My summer jaunt into upper division college courses proved to be atypical. And my mostly marvelous success with lower division courses was fun, but fleeting. This stuff is difficult, and it takes focus, and sometimes even that and hard work ain't enough.
Management and Marketing classes are fairly routine and I can keep up as long as I do the readings and spend time really focusing before an exam. Attending class regularly and taking good notes is certainly a key component and I'm glad I was already in that habit. Most of the concepts are familiar and anything new is relatively easy to grasp (and sometimes easy to identify on a test!). At this, the midpoint of the semester, an A in both classes is still reachable (although I've gotten B's on the tests so far).
Financial Accounting, however, is another story. I'm struggling. More than usual, I mean. I'm very frustrated and a little lost and don't know where to go to get my confidence back. I'm just going to have to keep struggling and fighting to get this stuff into my muddled brain.
Went through a couple of weeks where I nearly felt like quitting. It is hard to separate my self-worth from my schooling, after all, this is what I do and I'm used to being good at what I do. In fact, I'm good at a whole lot of things - just not Financial Accounting! The old test anxieties rear their ugly heads and sometimes I can't beat them back long enough to focus on the questions. It doesn't help that all tests are designed to make us rushed for time.
Their justification for this need for speed is that when we are accountants our hours will be billable and we won't have the luxury of being leisurely about our work. I suppose that's true, but when you're just learning the material, it sure feels punitive. And it doesn't help that several students do seem to get it and fly through the tests while the rest of us struggle! I'm certainly not alone, and that helps - a little. My first bad exam grade was typical of almost 40% of the class. But it just wasn't what I'm used to achieving. I can still get a B in the class, but only if I do a whole lot better on exams 2 and 3 than I did on exam 1. To move on to the next level next semester I only need a C in the class, and I might have to be happy with that. It isn't uncommon for accounting students to repeat this class, but I'd sure rather not go there.
However, one of the brighter events of this semester is that I finally have FRIENDS! No, the whole highly-touted cohort thing has mostly been a bust but, thanks to the two upper division classes I took last summer, I've made a couple of very good friends with whom to commiserate and occasionally study. They're close to my age and are both majoring in accounting. We share most of the same struggles either in accounting or the other classes. We share textbooks, when one of us has completed a class the other is just starting, and we also share experiences and advice when we're contemplating next semester's schedule. One has a young family (of teenagers!) and the other is caring for an elderly parent, so that adds depth to the relationship you just don't get from 19-22 year olds!
So I will make it through this semester. And I won't tie my self-worth to my grades! The one saving grace is that I am pretty sure the things I'm struggling with are associated mostly with public accounting (those big companies who sell stock) and not the mom-and-pop private businesses I hope to work with in my career after college. I can do just 53 more days! And then it's on to next semester, which will also be a struggle. But at least it will be a familiar one!
10 months ago