Celebrating Failure

I'm going to tell you the story of my failures at UF as an engineering major, and why they were the best thing that ever happened to me.

To preface this story, let's go back a few years. 

I was always the "smart kid."  From the time I was in second grade I was in the school's gifted program, I went to an IB middle school, I dual enrolled in high school, and graduated as valedictorian with a 5.3 GPA and 36 hours of college credit.  I always loved math.  In first grade I used to do my math assignments as fast as I could and ask the teacher for extra problems to solve.... NERD, I know.

In addition to this, my Dad was a mechanic and I'm his only child so I grew up working on cars.  When I got into high school we had academies to choose from, almost like choosing a major in college.  I chose both the engineering and automotive academies.  Putting two and two together I decided I wanted to be an automotive engineer and design car engines.

I was ecstatic to get accepted to UF, and was so ready to move out of my small town and go to college.  Since school had always come so naturally to me, I thought "this will be a breeze."

LOL is all I have to say about that one.

You know when you have your whole life figured out (or so you think) and then it. all. falls. apart....

Yeah, I immediately felt like a tiny minnow lost in the ocean when I began taking classes with thousands of students in auditoriums here at UF.  My first semester I dropped calculus 1 and failed chemistry 1.  It was such a shock going from being the smart kid with her whole career planned out, to being a failure...

I retook those classes and passed.

I retook calculus 2 THREE TIMES, before passing, and then took differential equations back home at FGCU and got an A (eye-roll).

In case you can't tell I am extremely hard headed and was not going to let someone tell me I couldn't do something, I wasn't going to accept failure, give up, or change my major unless it was on my terms.

Some time went by, and I had 2 years of college under my belt.  I thought I had it figured out.  Then physics two and statics showed me I still knew nothing.  In addition, I rushed an engineering fraternity, thinking it'd be a great networking opportunity for me, I'd make smart engineering friends, get internships, etc.

Then I got voted out of the fraternity during my pledge semester.  FAILURE STRIKES AGAIN.

This was it.  This was the turning point for me.
This whole time I was struggling in engineering, I was working out 6 days a week, weight training, doing cardio, meal prepping, teaching my friends about health/fitness etc.  It was m hobby, my passion.
I finally decided I had enough with engineering, it wasn't for me.  But I also knew I couldn't change my major to something like business, or something else I wasn't interested in... SO I decided it was time to turn my hobby and my passion into my career.  I didn't know how, but I decided to go for it and figure it out along the way.

So in summary... all of these FAILURES made me feel discouraged, and lost, and like my life was falling apart, when really it was falling together.

That cliche saying "when one door closes, another one opens"...  I believe it.

I now LOVE what I'm studying.  I appreciate school, my major, my classes and my professors everyday.  I'm succeeding and have made the dean's list two semesters in a row.  I got a really competitive internship position at a gym!  I'm a certified personal trainer, I'm already selling workout plans, training clients in person, and helping people with their diet/nutrition.  My interests/hobbies/passion have become my life.  And now I'm a freaking entrepreneur, building my own brand so I never have to work a day in my life.  How freaking cool is that?

I now tell this story with pride.  I'm not shameful of my failures.  I'm grateful that this is how things turned out.  And in turn, in the face of struggle and adversity, I now have more confidence that everything's going to be okay, even if I don't know what that looks like yet.