Overcoming Bad Results

Hi all,
It’s been a bit of a while since I last did an update to the blog, however today I’m going to discuss failure. I know it’s not really everyone’s cup of tea, however it needs to be talked about. Failing a module is just as important as passing one, because it can teach you some really important lessons.

One such lesson is that, a mistake will never define you. (apart from the following, which might… (thank you XKCD for being the source of joy to anything)

I’ve failed a lot throughout my life, exams, assignments, homework. However I’ve carried on pushing myself to do the best that I can do. Whether it be attempting University or even learning how to survive on a £5 / $6.94 a week budget. My most recent failure came after I failed my module that I was retaking.

To me, all that means is that I had a bad day during the exam.

One technique I learnt a long time ago was to go into every exam believing it was a mock examination, that it means nothing. It works. I don’t feel stressed, I don’t worry about it. I just go into the hall, write what I think the answers are, and leave. If I fail a module, well I just know that I’m not good at that topic… yet. I know I can come out, enjoy myself again and read my textbooks to learn it in the environment I prefer without having to worry about the impending deadlines.

That leads me to my other point, learning the topic in your own time.

No one likes to fail, and if you’re like me, you prefer to overcome that failure by proving to yourself you can do something. The best way I manage this is by reading through and practicing the work in your own time. Currently I’m working on a project in C++. The language I failed my module in. It’s slow progress, but I learnt a lot more about that topic from doing it without pressure than I have ever done before.

That’s something employers want to see. They want to see that you can overcome failure, and I know that I will always have “failed C and C++” and I will always tell employers if they ask, before replying with “however, I took this upon me and learnt from my mistakes and produced this.” (it’s actually really handy as 9/10 employers ask for a time when you learnt from a mistake)

It might be the definition of insanity, but it’s also the same as perseverance.

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results each time.
Perseverance: Try, try and try again until you get it right.

Keep attempting whatever might get you stuck, and someday it’ll just click, and you’ll have worked it out.

(Apart from me and percentages, but who will ever need to know what 34.46% of something is?)

Anyway. That’s me done for the day,
I hope my experience has given you some insight into failure and why it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

See you again! Conor

Keep spare cables/ chargers!

Hi everyone! Kathryn here and today’s tip of the day is simple but is something that will help avoid stress and make your life easier. And that is keep spares cables.

For those of you who don’t know Britain was recently invaded by this weird white stuff which is apparently called snow. And it just so happened that during a red weather warning my phone cable decided to die.

Luckily I was fortunate to be able to pick up one quite cheaply. However not so fortunately for me this cable was really finnicky and didn’t really charge my phone. So I had to wait a couple of days to buy one from the store I normally get them from*.

So my advice would be to keep spares! They don’t have to be really expensive, normally a Poundland one will do. But at least you’ll be covered if you can’t get to a shop.

And that’s all from me for today, until next time, Kathryn!

* for those of you interested I have an iPhone and I tend to buy cables from either Poundland or Flying Tiger (which although are more expensive are longer and more hipstery)

Join Societies (just don’t overdo it!)

Hi everyone, Kathryn here and before I begin I would like to apologise for the silence on this blog for the last few months.

The past few months have been very stressful in a lot of different ways, but hopefully I can draw on these experience to give you some more snippets of advice.

So, today my advice would be to try and join a few clubs and society when you go However a word of warning you should only join those clubs and societies that you are prepared to make a genuine commitment too.

But you may be wondering, why should I join a club of society? What do I get out of it?

• It makes you a more rounded individual. (Also it gives you something to put in the hobbies and interests section on your CV!)
• It’s a great way to start a new hobby or continue developing an existing one.
• It’s a great way to meet new people and make new friends.

The point I would like to empathise is the third one, societies are a great way to start friendships with people who aren’t necessarily your flatmates or course mates.

One of my biggest regrets from my first two years of university was not sticking with any societies. And when I return in third year I plan to remedy this by joining more societies and hopefully by making some new friends along the way.

So my advice to you would be to join societies. And most importantly remember , you don’t have to wait until freshers to join a society, you can join whenever you want.

And that’s all from me for today, Kathryn.