When I ended my fall semester, my GPA was 2.3. My goal was maybe unrealistic, but I wanted to get either a 3.2 or a 3.3 before I finished college. Deep down, I knew I was reaching, but after everything, I needed something, something to feel good. 

That spring semester, I enrolled in four classes while also taking anatomy as part of my nursing prerequisites. Learning every bone, muscle, artery, and structure just made me feel so stupid. 

What made it worse was that our professor would already have our exam grades by the time we took the exam. We would finish, and not even 30 mins later, he would call us up one by one to read our grades. 

Almost everyone around me was also going towards the nursing program, and it felt like everyone understood the material better than I did. No matter how much I studied, science never seemed to come naturally to me. I worked hard, but it often felt like I was running in place while everyone else moved forward.

 Unfortunately, I ended that class with a C. 

I was angry, but who could I be angry at? Me. Just angry at myself. Most of all, I was angry because I knew how badly I wanted it. 

Still, my other classes went well, and I managed to raise my GPA from a 2.3 to a 2.7. It wasn’t enough for the nursing program, and that hurt a lot. 

Again, as I’ve written before, that summer became the lowest point in my life. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I think I pushed a lot of my friends away out of guilt and humiliation. Every interaction with my parents felt like a reminder of what I hadn’t accomplished. I carried the shame everywhere I walked in my house. Every moment I spoke, I just had regret and anger. 

After a summer of wallowing, I realized I couldn’t continue with it. So that fall I did something slightly insane. I enrolled in six classes.

At that point in my academic career, I had now fully transitioned to a communication major, and my schedule was now packed with papers, presentations, projects, and internships. Some days it felt impossible. I was so exhausted, constantly stressed, and I kept thinking I was falling behind. 

I kept going, though. By the end of the semester, I hadn’t earned anything below a B 

My overall term GPA was a 3.4

My overall GPA climbed from a 2.7 to a 3.058. 

I remember staring at the number and thinking I’m slowly getting there. 

Not where I wanted to be yet, but closer. 

Close enough to keep fighting. 

The following spring semester, I once again signed up for six classes. Which really hit quickly, and I dropped one. They met late at night, and out of the 20 people who signed up, only 3 showed up. And after feeling like I bombed my essay, I felt even worse about the grade. So I made a deal. 

If I were able to pass the midterm with a good grade, I’d stay. If I fail the midterm so badly, I’ll drop it. 

The day of the midterm arrived, and before I even set foot on the train to go to school, I dropped the class out of panic because I was not ready. 

For once, I chose not to drown myself to try to prove myself. 

Which I should have done my first semester at my new school when I went into THAT professor’s class. 

The rest of the semester was filled with research papers, health campaigns, presentations, and more deadlines that I could count. That was probably such a hard semester that I was visiting the professors during office hours for the first time in my college years because I was scared of falling behind. 

I wasn’t trying to be the smartest student. I was trying to survive. By the end of my semester, my GPA rose from a 3.058 to a 3.096. 

SO CLOSE. So painfully close. Close enough, I could feel it. 

My final semester rolled around, and only three classes stood between me and a good GPA. 

Compared to my previous semester, it felt lighter, but the pressure never left. I still worried about every assignment, every paper, every grade, and I still calculated the GPA number in my head as if my life depended on it. 

When everything was finally over, my final GPA was a 3.156. It was just 0.044 away from a 3.2 

That semester, I got really mad at myself because I was so close. What would have happened if I had studied harder, if I had made a different choice, if I had just done everything better? 

But as time passed, I started looking at the bigger picture. I didn’t finish college with a 2.3. I finished with a 3.156. In four semesters, I raised my GPA from 2.307 to 3.156. 

It wasn’t luck, and it wasn’t easy. I tried really hard in my research and presentations, and worked and refused to quit. 

My parents never knew the GPA story. They didn’t know why I failed the nursing exam so badly, besides my TEAS score. 

Only one sibling knew, and I told them in secret. Though they told me they graduated with roughly the same GPA, still got their degree, and still have a good job, it meant something to me that, although I may not have been a 3.7 student, I still worked hard. 

A new reason to be proud