CCC8: I can't believe it (Fall Semester Wrapped)

To start off, you may have noticed that I posted less of these college reflections this semester. A part of it was due to being more busy, but the main reason was that I just couldn't bring myself to completely own up to my mediocrity, despite the fact that the two times I did post was about myself failing. In the eight-week summer semester, I posted four updates. This semester, although twice as long, I only posted half as many. As such, this will be a more comprehensive semester reflection. Since I haven't really talked about school very much this semester (I've really only posted about failing), I'll use this post to tell the story of this semester, from beginning to end.

August 2022: Adjusting

Going into my first "real" semester of college, I had to make a couple adjustments. Mainly, this revolved around my class schedule, where I shifted from mostly online to mostly in-person.

During summer, I went to one class for three hours a day, four days a week. I didn't miss class one time. This semester, I had four classes in-person; Mondays and Wednesdays I was at school from 1pm-5pm and Tuesdays and Thursdays I was at school from 9am-3:15pm, with a 3 hour break in between classes. I also had four hours of CS on Thursday nights, and an asynchronous music class which had not begun yet at this point. At first, this schedule was fine, but over time as you'll begin to read, it became a part of my downfall.

Classes started off quite slow, and used to the fast pace of summer semester, I slacked off a bit at the beginning of the semester. Physics began as mostly review from what I learned from AP Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism, CS became dry as it was my fourth time taking a beginner CS class for a new language, and writing was easier than high school. I actually found microeconomics very interesting, and I also had no idea what was going on in differential equations, but I was getting by for the time being.

I got an 85% on my first physics midterm, and a 96% on my first microeconomics exam, both without really studying. I also got a 73% on my first differentials quiz, but that was still a bit above average so I thought I was doing fine.

Because classes started easier and slower than I expected, I began to lose motivation. I wanted this semester to feel like a grind from start to end, and it wasn't. I wanted it to be the miraculous redemption arc through course overload that I chose community college for, but it just didn't feel like I needed to turn my classes into my life. I couldn't romanticize the journey, because it was dry and not special. And as my initial spark fizzled out, I began to procrastinate more and more.

It wasn't going to be very hard. Or so I thought.

September 2022: Downward spiral

Physics began to move into uncharted territory. My previous knowledge from AP stopped carrying me, and I finally had to begin putting forth effort. Differential equations got harder. Workload from writing began to grow. But I had already zoned out.

I got really absorbed into competitive TFT because I was slightly annoyed with the abundance of free time I had at the start of the semester. This came back to bite me; it caused me to fail two midterms which was terrible on my mental health. But to cope, I would play for hours on end, which would just worsen my mental health even further. In addition, I was really dead set on hitting Challenger in TFT, and this added to my stress. I wanted to commit everything to something, but school didn't move fast enough at the beginning. I instead committed to TFT, and became really dead set on hitting Challenger. This only added to my stress, and I knew it was the reason I was failing school. But I was so hyperfocused, and I had already spent so much time. I decided I would give TFT everything, and then focus on school.

I fell really far behind. I started skipping classes. Instead of school, I made TFT my life.

During the month of September, I failed two major midterms, one for physics and one for differentials. It was a 64.7% and 48.4% respectively. At the same time, I put minimal effort into my writing, C++, and microeconomics classes, but for the time being my talent carried me. At that point in time, my music appreciation course had not started yet.

To be quite honest, at this point into the semester I could not even fathom that the result would be what it was today. I already accepted that it was likely that I would get a B or two.

On September 30th, I finally hit Challenger.

October 2022: Downcast

I finally reached my TFT goals, and had to come back to reality: that I was in fact failing school.

After receiving my miserable differential equations midterm score, I talked to my professor about my grade, where he essentially said that I could maybe get a B in the class if I spent more time digesting the material. When I told him that my goals for the class was to get an A, he lightly told me that it was very unlikely, but "who knows." From that point on, I treated the semester like I couldn't save my 4.0, which was mental block that was very hard for me to get over.

I promised a couple of things to him that day too. I told him I knew I was capable of doing much better, and I told him that I would ask him for help if I needed it. I did not follow up on the latter statement.

I feel like the "I'm capable of doing so much better," is quite a common phrase, and I don't think he took my very seriously. My actions weren't the most convincing. I started to miss classes quite often, and at my worst I would only come to class when we were required to take a quiz or turn in homework.

Despite missing classes, I still attempted to try as hard as I could, which led to extremely long nights where I didn't even believe that I could achieve the results I wanted. I fell into these cycles where one day I would push myself to the limit, then the day after I would believe everything was pointless and I was a failure and give up, then the day after I would push myself again to compensate for wasted time. I was often filled with remorse as I would keep thinking to myself "if I didn't fail those two midterms, everything would be a lot easier." Missing classes kind of became a defense mechanism; I thought to myself some days that if I did go to class, I would legitimately go batshit crazy.

My music appreciation class also began this month. It was just several chapters of reading textbook and taking notes a week. It was pretty bad, I was losing upwards of eight valuable weekend hours every single week, when I already needed to commit so much to catching up.

My sleep schedule also became extremely fucked up. The month of October was the worst in that regard; I averaged 6 hours and 25 minutes a night, the least of any month this semester. To put that number into context, on days without school (3 days a week), I would sleep for 8 to 12 hours, so you can only imagine how many hours I was getting on school days. This was also a reason for missing differentials. Since it was a 9am class, I just could not find it in me to wake up for it some days.

November 2022: The absolute lowest

My writing class used a "grading contract." This essentially was a certain set of criteria we needed to meet, and that would determine our final grade for the class. Among those were "participation," with the exact description being something like "I enrich nearly every class session." I realized that I actually needed to go to class to enrich it. Microeconomics also had something about attendance in the syllabus, although it was not directly related to grading. Regardless, in the month of November, I started going to class more, because I felt like I had to.

I still skipped differential equations and physics a good amount; maybe I went to half the classes. But for this month, I made it to every single writing class, and nearly every single microeconomics class. I was really trying my hardest.

I think I surprised my differentials professor with my performance on the second midterm, where I scored the highest score in the entire class, which was only a 90.4%. Yet, it still didn't feel like enough. According to my calculations, I had needed a score even better than that to offset my abysmal score on the first midterm. Scoring the highest score in the class and it still not being good enough, it was the most hopeless feeling.

I continued to put my head down and study, I thought that maybe if I could remain flawless for the rest of the semester maybe I could curve into an A. Yet, in the second quiz after the second midterm, I scored a 13/15. To me, that was the moment where I felt like I was completely out of contention.

As for physics, I studied a large amount of hours for the third and last midterm, yet I failed to produce good results. I did marginally better, scoring a 72.7%. After the test, I thought to myself that even given unlimited time, there were questions on the test that I wouldn't be able to solve. And it was around this time where I truly felt that I was incapable. That the class was just too hard, and I would never be able to score high enough on the final to secure my A.

I also knew that I probably wasn't getting an A in writing. On the grading contract, there was another criteria where we were required to have two instances of feedback on every essay, which could be through our professor's office hours, or our school's writing center. I did go to the writing center for every essay, although my "feedback," wasn't necessarily very constructive and I didn't change my paper much from their feedback, if at all. For only the first essay, I also went to my professor's office hours as my second instance of feedback. For the other two essays, I went to my professor's office hours after the essay was due. The most egregious was for the third essay, where I was in the waiting room for my professor's Zoom, two days before the due date of the essay, but I fell asleep.

Following the due date, I went to their office hours, where they asked me if I thought I needed to revise my essay to pass. I told them that I thought it was at least good enough to earn the pass, although nowhere near perfect. They then asked me what the both of us were gaining from these office hours if I didn't think I needed to revise. I told them something along the lines of "the writing center wasn't very helpful," and then a plan for how I can fix my errors in the future, but I just got bad vibes from the situation overall.

Music appreciation also continued to take a toll on me and eat up a lot of my time, but the class content was actually getting a little interesting.

I never really attended CS classes, but my background and prior knowledge in coding made learning a new language very intuitive.

Microeconomics was mostly smooth sailing, but I began to let my guard down. After back to back 96%'s on the first two midterms, a scored an 81% on the third one. I thought it would be mostly fine though.

The month of November was certainly the lowest. My light was extremely dim and my hope was at an all time low. I had already felt like my world was crashing down around me and anything I tried wouldn't be able to save it. I was barely eating, and I would fall asleep on random benches on campus in between classes to make up for lost sleep at night. I felt like I was getting sick every other day. My health was so poor.

Concluding November, there were three classes I was very uncertain of what the final outcome would be. I thought it was likely that I would be getting three B's this semester. This would drop my 4.0 to a 3.73, which would make getting into college significantly more difficult, and would put my GPA at around the 25th percentile for UCLA.

December 2022: Giving it everything

There was this one voice inside me that told me it was still possible. Despite how dire the situation looked, despite what my grades looked like before finals week, despite how impossible it seemed to pull off straight A's, there was a part of me that did not, could not let go. If I was going to die, I was going to die trying.

For music appreciation, I had to go to a concert live and in-person, which I intended to go to alone, but I was fortunate enough to have my sister agree to attend with me. I had initially thought that it was a large time commitment, and it was also time that I did not have. I considered faking my concert experience paper, but I am very glad that I did not.

It was quite a surreal and grounding experience; Pacific Symphony's rendition of George Frideric Handel's masterpiece opera Messiah at the Segerstrom Center of the Arts. In a semester where everything was moving so damn fast, I had three hours dedicated to just spending time with my sister, doing what we grew up doing together, music. It reminded me of who I was doing everything for. It wasn't just for myself, but for everyone that believed in me through and through. For my mother who trusted my decision, and for my sister that bought into it.

Still, by no means was it easy. December was probably the hardest month of them all. I had five classes where I still had to do well on the final, music appreciation was the only class that I truly felt I had an A locked for.

I still held remorse for the past every single day. I spiraled into regret and doubt every other hour. Every moment of my life I felt that maintaining my 4.0 was impossible. But I couldn't let it phase me. I just had to keep pushing.

My emotions were so bipolar

But giving up just wasn't an option.

Writing didn't have grades visible. Our entire grade relied on one cumulative reflective essay, which essentially we would explain our performance in the class and use that as evidence to argue for the grade we thought that we deserved. All I could do was pray that my professor would take pity on me.

I needed around a 68% for microeconomics, which was harder than it sounded because I had basically not touched microeconomics to instead focus on differentials and physics.

I needed a 91% for physics, which I felt was just completely out of reach because of my prior experiences with the tests. They just felt so difficult in the past and I didn't know how I would get anywhere near the score I needed.

I needed around an 85% for CS. This had two parts: a coding project and a multiple choice exam which actually took place the week before finals week. Getting an 85% was genuinely difficult because of the multiple choice section on the final, which had a high score of something like a 93%, and I got an 81%. This meant that I needed an 89% on the final project, which was graded much later than the multiple choice.

I also couldn't even get above a 90% in differentials. I think it was something like if I got a 98% on the differential final, I could barely graze an 87% in the class. All I could do was trust the curve.

And this set the stage for finals week.

Monday: Writing (No exam) --> Physics

Tuesday: Differentials --> Microeconomics

I studied harder that week than I had ever done in my entire life. The entire weekend, I spent my time reviewing physics from beginning to end, digesting over two hundred pages of textbook and attempting to understand every single homework problem from the entire semester. During my entire time studying, I had a this terrible mentality that I just was not capable of getting the score that I needed. But I couldn't give up. My plan was to spend the entire weekend on physics, spend the entire night after that studying differentials, and then use the three hour break between differentials and microeconomics to cram for the final test.

By the entire weekend, I meant the entire weekend. I got minimal sleep on Saturday and Sunday, and slept for slightly over one hour the night before the final.

When I woke up Monday morning, I still felt extremely unconfident. But the show had to go on. Our writing professor actually let us out an hour early from class, since we basically had nothing to do, and I used that last hour to study. Then it was time for my first big final, physics.

Right as the exams were distributed, I flipped through and breathed a sigh of relief. It was everything I had studied for, and I was confident that I could solve everything. I was so fortunate to see digestible conceptual questions, examples that I had reviewed, and the easiest Kirchhoff's Circuit Laws question ever. I finished two hours early, checked my answers multiple times and was the first person to turn in my test. I left over an hour early, and I felt very confident I had done enough.

The job wasn't over though. There was still a lot left to do, and there was a long night ahead of me. Having essentially committed the entire weekend to physics, there was still a lot I needed to review for differentials. And then, of course, microeconomics.

It was hard to stay motivated. I was so fucking tired, and throughout the night, I had this subconscious thought in the back of my mind telling me that it was practically impossible for me to finish the class with an A, and that I could just go to sleep and accept my B. I drowned out all the noise by blasting hardstyle at almost unhealthily high volumes throughout the entire night. I reviewed the entire textbook, and did several questions from every single chapter. Yet, I knew I didn't have enough time to fully digest everything, and I could only pick and choose what I thought was the most important. I didn't sleep for the entire night, and by the morning I felt like throwing up. But I had to keep going.

After the differential equations final, I remember saying "I don't think I did enough." I knew I did relatively well, but at the same time I didn't think the score I got would net me an A. I set this arbitrary standard that I needed at least a 98% to at least have a chance at getting rounded up, and I knew for sure that I did not meet that.

Riding that low, I decided to just let everything go. Rather than studying in the time between differentials and microeconomics, I instead took a nap and woke up feeling extremely dizzy.

Going into the microeconomics test, I was still very tired and I couldn't really focus. Everything seemed so bright and all I wanted to do was sleep. As I opened the exam, I realized that I actually didn't know the answer to any of the essay questions. I wrote down random shit that was vaguely related to the prompts, hoping to receive enough points to meet the score I needed. I wasn't sure if I did or not.

At this point, all there was left to do was wait for my impending doom.

My physics final was the first to release, surprisingly very fast. When I received the email that it was graded, I quickly went to check my Canvas grades. Quickly, my stomach sank as I saw my overall grade was an 88%. The test was so easy to me, how could I have done so poorly? Why didn't I take the additional time to check my work again? Shocked, I refreshed my grades page.

And there it was. My scores updated. 142/150, 94.7%. I rechecked my grade in the class, 90.4%. I did it.

The next grade to release was music appreciation. I expected an easy A and that's what I got.

Then, the weekend after finals week was the first big one. I received an email from my writing professor stating that they had finalized grades. I knew that I was just as likely to get a B in this class as I was to get an A. To me, it felt like my final grade depended on how much my teacher pitied me.

On the reflective essay, I argued that I deserved an A. It would be extremely awkward to score otherwise. After a couple minutes of overthinking, I checked my grade. I couldn't escape it forever, anyways. I finished with an A. I was shocked.

I had a couple day grace period before the differential equations final released on the Wednesday morning after Christmas. I woke up and immediately saw the notification in my inbox, and quickly opened Canvas. I expected a B, I knew I didn't score enough to finish the class with an 87%, and I didn't think I would be anywhere near. I expected to finish the class with anywhere between an 81% and 84% and just accept the B. I got a 90.9% on the final. I finished the class with an 84.96%. It curved to an A, and I could not believe my eyes. This was the first time since August that I truly felt optimistic about what was to come.

I got a pretty good score on the final CS project as well, 154/160, 96.3%. That secured my A.

It all came down to microeconomics, which didn't even release until the grade deadline. In fact, the score came so late that I didn't even see what I got on the final. Maybe that's a good thing because I probably got a really terrible score on it, but thankfully it covered the 68% I needed. And somehow, I maintained the 4.0. Something I didn't think I was capable of doing for pretty much the entire semester.

Although this semester was anywhere from clean, I still do feel proud. My impostor syndrome tells me I don't deserve to feel that way, but I know I do, at least a little bit.

I found ways to hype myself up when everything seemed so dire. I told myself I was capable even when I believed I wasn't. I rode small bursts of motivation and leveraged them into bigger successes. I tried my hardest even when the ship seemed like it was sinking. And those are what made the difference.

I thought that I could never create the motivation and spark I felt during the first few weeks of summer semester ever again. But I created an even more demonic version of that during finals week. I truly did pull off the miracle run. Backed by intense hardstyle and an insuppressible glimmer of hope, I did what I thought was impossible. Somehow, summer semester was reproducible. But this finals week? I'm not so sure. This was my high.

Because of this, despite all the easily preventable missteps this semester and multiple shortcomings, I have something to be happy about. I pulled through in a situation where many wouldn't, and nobody can take that away from me.

I am capable, I can do what I put my mind to, and I can summon miracles.

I can't believe it.