When we start our school journey, we usually assume that we will do well and learn anything given the right teacher, which is true. So then why do so many people have trouble in college? Well, they expected that college would be easy or that they won’t need to spend all day studying. The real expectation should be that college is a proving grounds for you and your work ethic, perseverance, and willingness to seek the things you want. We should expect to struggle, fail, and ask for help, but we( including myself) tend to think we can do it all good the first time.
I have been good at school and learning most of my life. This knowledge has helped me be confident enough to take on challenges and come out on the other side while also not getting weighed down with all that I have to do and how much time I have to do it. The issue arises when I expect myself to get it right the first time or get it right away. I have learned that the expectations that we place on ourselves can either motivate us or discourage us. Give yourself a little grace and do your best; sometimes, that won’t be enough, but not trying for fear of not meeting your expectations will cripple you going forward. Expect yourself to put in the effort and to have to learn and grow as you go. I don’t think of myself as a perfectionist, but I do have some tendencies that way, and I found a piece of advice that said doing something half-way is still something done half-way was not doing something because you can’t do it perfectly is still nothing done perfectly. Do what you can and do it the best you can with what you have at your disposal, and adjust your expectations accordingly.
The project I am working on has been fun to research and has helped me to get better at researching and understanding how the design and implementation process can change as you go along. I initially expected to implement our store-page directly into another website, but I currently don’t think that will work how we wanted it to do. I expected to create a tool that would build the web store with a few clicks of a button, but I now see that this is most likely not the case. My expectations allowed me to work and continue in the process until I discovered new information to change my expectations. That is the learning process and what college is all about.
I am looking forward to what my team and I create and what we learn along the way. I expect to be challenged, have to grow, and stay up late a few times, but ultimately I expect that we can do what we set our minds to.
“I don’t know who we’ll become
I can’t promise it’s not written in the stars
But I believe that when it’s done
We’re gonna see that it was better”
Lyrics from Grow as We Go by Ben Platt