Why Failing a Class Can Be a Blessing

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I just finished my third year of pharmacy school. (If you want to read more about my past experiences in pharmacy school, check out the articles on this page.) This year came with more challenges than ever. We had the most demanding modules of the curriculum this year, which challenged me more than I had anticipated. I did not do as well academically as before and failed my first class. However, having the right mindset helped turned failing a class into something I am grateful for.

For some reference, I was always a top-performing student until pharmacy school, where I soon became average-performing. This was an adjustment for me, but I quickly learned there will be people smarter than me throughout my life. However, just because I was average did not mean I didn’t try. I passed my first and second years of school without any problems. But, like I said before, this third year was much more challenging for me. I assume part of the problem was that it was my last year of didactic classes. It felt like a senior year, and senoritis is a real problem. I also had a lot of personal changes that happened this year as well.

A Failure?

The class I failed was Immunology and Oncology Pharmacotherapy, a class where we learned about monoclonal antibodies and different cancer treatments, a fast-growing area of pharmacy. With all the new drugs coming out, this class is quickly becoming more and more complex. As I’m sure you could guess, the material was challenging.

As I mentioned, many personal changes were also happening during this time. Towards the end of this course, my grandmother got sick and was in the hospital for over a week. I spent much of my free time at the hospital with her, which took away from my studying time. The second personal challenge was with my mom. There were medical concerns with her, with one of those concerns being potential cancer. As you can imagine, learning about cancer and then having a parent showing symptoms of cancer is a little challenging. Especially when it’s the week of finals.

Ultimately, I failed the course by 2 points, which is not bad considering I spent more time with my family than studying. However, that meant I had to repeat the course at the end of the year. I thought this was the end of the world and that I would never have my dream residency or my dream job now. However, I soon learned this wasn’t the case, and failing a class is much more common among some of my mentors (who are all very successful pharmacists) than I realized.

Instead of starting my final year of pharmacy school with the rest of my classmates, I spent from mid-May to mid-June studying for my remediation final. I lived and breathed oncology regimens for that entire month. When I took my test, I felt ready for the exam. I passed with an 80%!

Learning Moments

Looking back, I realized that while failing a class was not ideal, I learned much more about myself. To begin with, I recognized that my outlook on failure was a positive one. I used the failure as a motivator and a learning experience. When professors asked me about repeating the course, the first feedback I received was how positive and professional my response was compared with other students they had spoken with.

The second thing I learned was no one expects you always to be perfect. This concept was hard to grasp as a perfectionist, but I’m glad I did. This could be a whole post itself, so I’ll keep it brief. Nobody is perfect, so why should we hold ourselves to such a high standard? I would love to say you will never make another mistake in your life, but I’d be lying if I said that. What made me realize this was how nonchalant all my professors were about me failing this class. While I was visibly freaking out when I first found out, they were the voice of sanity saying that I was going to be just fine. I realized these people I looked up to in my career have all struggled and made mistakes, so why should I be any different?

The last thing I learned was, of course, all the oncology and immunology drugs. Studying didn’t matter if I wasn’t actually learning the material. As I said earlier, this area is quickly growing, so having a decent idea about it as a baseline is very important. I’m grateful that I was forced to go through all the information again because now I feel better prepared for things I may encounter in the future.

Wrapping Things Up

While failing is never a fun experience, you can make the best of it by keeping a positive mindset. If you’ve ever failed at something, what helped you finally succeed? Let me know in the comments below!

As always, if you like this post and want to stay up to date, follow me on Instagram (@averylivinglife) and Pinterest (username: averylivinglife) for news and updates on my adventures!

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