It’s okay to fail

One year ago I had my first accounting course, which made me question if maybe some superior power had it in for me. The first few lectures felt stupidly easy, this I think a lot of us have learnt the hard way is a serious red flag. I started slacking off a bit and stopped paying very much attention during lectures and seminars, until I actually looked up from my phone again and realized that I understood nothing.

Studying for the exam was hell. It was a course where the lectures were not recorded so back tracking became infinitely harder. I came to really hate accounting during that study period. In my opinion it was boring and didn’t make any sense whatsoever. Needless to say, I wasn't able to understand the majority of the material in my hurried cramming. In the end I went to the exam anyways, figured I might pass if I was really lucky with the questions.

I failed. Miserably. I didn’t even perform well on the part I thought I knew. Not even close to passing the exam. It was a tough exam, and a lot of people failed. But as it was my first failed exam ever I still felt bothered by it, especially since it probably was my lack of attention rather than the course administration causing my poor results. At best they were equal culprits. Obviously, regardless of my then burning hatred of the course, I eventually had to do the retake.

I took the retake this summer, right before the start of term. I came back to Stockholm right after finishing my summer job and with a heavy heart I started to study the dreaded course again. I tried to disregard all of my initial notes, as they obviously had been of little help the first time around. Instead I tried out all the other approaches I hadn’t done the first time.

As it was the summer retake and I didn’t have any other re-exams I was able to fully focus on this one exam without being too stressed out. I went to school and sat in the atrium everyday and did my best to figure out all the financial statements and so on. At first I felt very reluctant. But as I sat everyday and forced myself to go through it all until I knew it, I found that the more I learned the less resistant I got to doing the practice exams, towards the last few days before the retake I had even started to quite enjoy my study sessions. I had been one of those people who thought you had to be crazy to find accounting satisfying or appealing in any way, but I started to get it in the end.

I ended up exceeding my own expectations. My initial goal had been to just pass the course, I would have been happy with exactly fifty points, I just wanted to move on with my life and never look at a balance sheet again. But I actually managed to rack up some more points and even improved my GPA somewhat. Even better, I got much more confidence for the next course than I would have had otherwise. I also no longer feel sick just from hearing the words financial statements. In the end I think that failing that particular course and actually studying it properly was one better than barely passing and keeping my resentment and trauma.

Failing can be scary and frustrating, but sometimes it’s worth it.