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The Ultimate Academic Failure

October 8th, 2024

 

There was something happening in my life for the past half of the year: I faced The Ultimate Academic Failure — I failed 4 exams in the spring (complex and vector analysis and two compsci subjects). That put a strain on me, to say the least, because the possibility of getting expelled got very real. I wish I cared less, but the constant stress spoiled my summer, I couldn't let go of the thought that September will come, and I'll have to deal with something that seemed absolutely unfeasible.

 

Well, so, I passed everything. Neither I nor people that were aware of the situation expected me to deal with all four at once, so I'm really proud of myself. I'm liberated and able to breathe freely again. I think, that could very well be a core event in my life because I had to change a lot in my way of living in order to make it through.

 

There are two main reasons I failed my exams: I struggle to get organized and force myself to do things. That significantly and chronically impairs numerous aspects of my life, especially academic performance, but also hobbies and relationships with people.

 

I think, I figured out how to be more organized. I used to always be late, forget stuff that I needed to do, miss deadlines. For years, there always has been someone in my class who'd micromanage and mother me for that reason. In high school that was my friend I have known for more than a decade, in university — my classmate who I became really good friends with. Both of them would remind me to do my homework, tell me where to go, what to do, etc. And both of them would be astonished at just how exactly messy and scatterbrained I can sometimes be.

This time I really had to put my life in order, so I got a daily planner. I can't believe how good it works and I don't understand how I was living without it. I got to the point when "if it's not in my planner, it doesn't exist". I don't have to care about remembering things anymore, it's all externalized, and that's such a liberating feeling. If your head is full of plans and tasks, it's too crammed for new ideas to emerge.

 

The doing things issue is trickier. I really struggle to just "eat the frog", just force myself through an undesirable task. The only way for me to get something done is to become excited about it, otherwise I fall into some kind of a stupor, so I'm constantly trying to come up with new tricks to artificially get excited about something I don't really care about. Some tricks last longer, some stop causing any reaction after, like, two weeks.

I really doubt that living off two-week hacks is a sustainable way of getting through life, though. I can't just always keep coming up with new ones — some core things in the way I think and live should be fixed. Is it possible to change them, though? I don't know.

 

And here lies the fundamental conflict I have with the world: I hate doing things, but the world revolves around that. It's so hard to force myself to do stuff I'm not interested in — when there's some chore I need to do, I have to perform several rounds of mental gymnastics to convince myself to do it, even if it's something really small. I'd bargain with myself, sugarcoat it, gamify, come up with additional rewards like putting a cute sticker into the planner. It's a constant exhausting mental battle, and the perspective of living like this for the rest of my life is depressing. My studies are a train wreck, am I destined to have all of my life this way? I just wish me starting the thing wasn't so far from me not starting and thinking i should start.

 

My crutches

It feels like I lack something other people have. Here's how I overcompensate.

What works the best for me is making everything look pretty. I love doing art, so I try to find ways to turn whatever I have trouble starting into art.

I hated note taking until I realized I can view lecture notes as creating art. I'm one of these girls with colored pens and neat handwriting — if I focus on design, the burdensome task becomes not only bearable, but almost fun.

I also make my writing materials pretty, so they're pleasant to use. All of my notebooks have hello kitty stickers on them. Recently I got a Pentel Energel Clena pen, and I liked it so much that I was looking forward to DOING HOMEWORK because it'd mean an occasion to write with my new cute pink pen... Then someone borrowed it from me and didn't return..

I also heavily decorate my daily planner to increase my interest in it — I bought, like, 600 sanrio stickers for that..

 

Novelty also helps. Sometimes switching from pen and paper to a txt file gets me out of the stupor. Switching environments helps, too — I alternate between studying at home, in the library and coffee shops. I also try to gamify the process as much as possible. I often draw a progress bar for the task I'm doing and filling it up is quite satisfying. When I prepare for the exams, I always print out the list of questions and color the ones I already studied.

 

You might have gotten the impression that I prefer physical media (e.g., paper books, notebooks, etc.) to digital media. Eh, not really. I'd gladly give up my pens if it was practical. I'd definitely prefer a digital productivity setup, but none of the programs I've tried have satisfied me. I guess I'd only ever be satisfied with a digital system if I wrote my own software with some really esoteric controls, so for now my setup consists of a paper planner and a whiteboard.

 

Complex analysis

Honestly, now I'm kind of grateful I had to go through the whole rigmarole of re-exams because I'd never learn complex analysis so well otherwise. It was the hardest of all — our prof is very rigorous. It was already my third take on it. I think, it very well could be that I now have a better understanding of it than the vast majority of students in my course, as bold as it sounds... You know, studying the entirety of the material from start to finish is quite good. The same thing twice is better, and three times is even better than two.

 

Also had yet another encounter with a phenomenon that is obvious but still surprises me every time. I haven't touched complex analysis for several months since my previous attempt, but I sat on the information I studied and when I opened it again, things that were hard to understand before were just coming naturally to me, as if it was something I always knew, something so obvious and logical.

 

What really helped me to finally pass complex analysis this time is that it sparked my interest and it became my hyperfixation for a while... I've never been so interested in some math problem to continue thinking about it for extended periods of time. I still haven't resolved a couple of questions i have after studying all of the material and it tickles my brain. I want to continue studying them on my own.

I have this soviet book from 1957 called "Theory of analytical functions", me and my friend bought it at the flea market when we were preparing for the exam together. It's such a good book, it helped me lots. Sometimes it'd have much better proofs than what our prof gave us, or if it was the same proof, it was presented much better in the book. It was a great help in my preparation, and I'll continue reading it for my own pleasure.