For many, the career they’re interested in perusing will require them to take classes that can be challenging. Some students when faced with this situation will push themselves and dedicate more of their time to the subject. They will do this because their goal is reaching the career they’re passionate about. While there are other students placed in the same situation that can discover the field they initially thought of going after might not be the right one for them. There is nothing wrong if this happens. It just allows students to find out what better suits them.

When sharing stories with other students, the class we usually struggle in common with is math. Math and I, from time to time, can be friendly towards one another yet we are never really friends. I’m a liberal arts and science major (LAS), currently in Pre-Calculus and will have to go up to Calculus 2 (1575), and what drives me is the fact that I need to pass these classes to get my degree. I’ve had moments where the problems on the board or pages look like hieroglyphs. When taking exams I can sometimes forget methods or even go blank. Yet, the moments that I do understand how to solve something it is one of the best feelings of accomplishment.

There is no shame in getting help. This applies to every subject. If I am unsure, confused or struggling with a topic, I can ask the professor during or after class, I can go to tutoring, study with friends, etc. What works best for me is doing the problems over and over and explaining how to get the answer to someone else. Repetition, writing and explaining help with remembering what steps to take to solve the problem and my thought process to getting there.