I am Afraid of Failure

What do you do when you love everything about your campus but the classes you are taking? And the major you are in? That was the position I was in last year and was under tremendous amount of stress. Last year, I was a student in Aerospace Engineering in one of the best schools in the aviation field. I was extremely involved on campus and had a good set of friends and was in great mental shape. After the annual career fair was over, I started to realize that as an international student, getting a job in the defense sector was near impossible for me. I was already two years into the program and almost 100k in debt and had no idea what to do. My parents were funding my education and I didn’t want to give them the bad news. I started hating all my classes and ended up doing very poorly in most of my classes. I had a 1.0 CGPA decreases that semester and was incredibly upset with myself. I was scared to talk to my parents and hesitated to tell them how I was doing in class and would often lie and say that things were going great. A whole semester passed by and it was time to go home for the summer.

As I was waiting for my flight home, I couldn’t keep the news to myself and ended up breaking it to my father. When I told him what I was going through and thoughts of me wanting to transfer, he broke down and was shocked. I didn’t know how to face them when I landed at home. My whole family was there for me, with open arms and smiles to pick me up from the airport. We went home, sat down and discussed my options and had a very productive conversation but my future plans. To my surprise, they were happy with me transferring schools and supported my decision to change majors. I have never stopped sharing a small little thing with them ever since.

Life can be hard, but the key is to always move forward and share your thoughts with someone. Maybe if I would have come forward or spoke to someone earlier, I could have saved a semester and it wouldn’t have been so stressful.

My family has passed down the legacy of fortitude and my target is to augment it, by building on what my forefathers have achieved. Ultimately, what really makes me strive to achieve my goals is the promise to my father; I looked my dad in the eyes and said to him “I won’t let you down, Dad”.