My experience of failing exams and repeating the year

King.Penguin

I can give you an account of my experience of failing an exam and repeating the year. I stress this is purely an account of my own situation which may not reflects yours, or your potential situation in any way.

Self indulgent alert.

In first year science I went to about 50-60% lectures, very rarely did any outside work/reading except for lab reports. I didn't study until the exam season really got going. I only had ambitions about passing. I didn't think my 1st year results would be significant. basically, I was the typical waster student that struggles big time with exams. I was very happy in general, had a gf, had a couple of friends to chat to during/after lectures, was doing judo etc. Anyway, I was lucky, I got 36% in chemistry ( my worst subject) but was able to pass by compensation and pass the year.

In second year I was basically the same. However, the courses got significantly more difficult and I couldn't rely on picking up a few pieces in lectures, studying the day before an exam and winging a pass answer. At the end of Hilary term it was obvious to me that I didn't have a fffing clue about anything in a whole subject (33% of my course). Coupled with this I had very bad lecture and lab attendance. However, the most important thing was the streamed entrance to JS based on your SF results.

Basically it all went according to plan I did well in one exam (well for me being 45%), badly in another (40%) and terribly in another (32%). So basically I couldn't do the course I wanted to in 3rd year because all the places are already filled up before supplementals came (Zoology). However, even though I really loved that subject, I was worried about the expense (5500) of repeating and I was optimistic that I'd be able to get into an area I'm interested in by doing a similar course (botany). However, I was still very ****ing lazy and didn't really study for the exams and did worse in the supplementals.

So I failed 2nd year. The consequences of this were many. I was embarrassed by failing. I'd never failed an exam before (well accept chemistry in first year but that didn't count). My parents, although they never actually gave me **** over it, were disappointed. I basically felt like a screw up of a person. In combination with break ups in relationships, I felt a bit **** for a while. However, I'd consider myself a very resilient person and I turned it on it's head and made the most out of it. But the financial aspect was the biggest hit. It's not that myself or my parents are in a bad way for money, they both are taxed at the higher level. But they couldn't really afford to, or wanted to, and I didn't want them to, fork out 5000+ for repeating the year. But I was able to get a loan in AIB with little hassle (the only issues were the rate of repayment and when repayments would commence).

So I repeated the year along with a couple of other people I know who failed. One of them is a big, big friend of mine now and for that alone, I'm glad I repeated. I did slightly better second time around, just enough to get into the course I wanted.

Fundamentally i really enjoyed the repeat year. It wasn't really that hard after all especially since I knew what needed to be done and when I needed to start doing it. All the project and lab reports and stuff were always handed in and done well. I went to most lectures but was a bit more savvy about what I needed to know and what I could just avoid.

I'm still repaying the loan and it's bit of a monkey on my back. It's one of my excuses for not doing a J1 and it's really putting me off doing a M.Sc too.

So in summary, and this has been a long, long winded post:

I failed the exams.
I felt miserable for a while.
I got over it.
I had an excellent year (due to new friendships, more time for clubs and socs).
I was able to qualify for my preferred course.
I had to pay a lot of money to do this.
I have to explain to a lot of people why I'm only graduating this year.
It was worth it.

Pet

Good post, KP. Heh, who would have thought we're so similar when it comes to our approaches to coursework!? Your first three paragraphs describe my experience of the past two years almost exactly (with some circumstances; also, I withdrew from the year in 04/05 for a few different reasons which aren't really important here). But I know that if I do repeat, I'll definitely be more motivated.