How to Bounce Back from Failure
Failure is a tricky subject. Working extremely hard just to barely fall short of your goal is painful, and often crushing. But, as quoted from the ever-popular series (Batman):
"Bruce, why do we fall?"
"So we can pick ourselves up again."
What matters is not that you failed, but rather how well you bounce back after, because failing is just a part of life! I had a pretty tough semester, I'm not going to lie. After a couple of rough grades first semester, I unfortunately fell just short of the requirements for honours. Rather than falling into a pit of despair, I was proactive about it!
I started looking at the different options I had to apply for manual entry to honours, and one of the options is taking an honours examination, so I am currently revising all of 1st semester's lectures, tutorials, and practicals. It takes a lot of work, and although I would much rather be on the couch watching The Mindy Project, I am instead re-writing notes, coding, and answering tutorial questions in preparation if I have to take the exam!
I would recommend putting sticky notes (as cheesy as it sounds!) with inspirational quotes in your desk area - seeing those reminders to work hard every time you sit down to your desk is incredibly helpful, and boosts your mood! You have to be your own role model if you want to improve yourself, bounce back from your failure, and be better than ever!
<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/PzMBMQSfPYCis" width="480" height="480" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/role-model-i-love-myself-PzMBMQSfPYCis">via GIPHY</a></p>
Although it sounds tedious, doing some in-depth research into general topics that confused you during the semester, or concepts that you didn't do well on in the exam, is really beneficial. Try to find all the concepts that confuse you and make a list of them. Then, start looking for practice coding problems involving the concepts!
A good site to use for specific areas of coding questions is Hacker Rank - you can pick which language you want to code in - e.g. C, Java, Python, etc. - and you can pick different topics to practice - e.g. SQL, Databases, Data Structures, etc. There's only so much reading you can do - especially when it comes to coding - after you've got the concepts down you just need to code! Once you've coded the concept and dealt with the errors that will inevitably pop up, you'll find that you understand the concept so much better than you would have if you'd just read about it online.
Throughout everything, just remember - failure is a chance to better yourself! If you messed up with some concepts - it's just a chance for you to go back and re-learn them better than you ever would have in the first place! Good luck, and start coding!
