Life lessons I learned as a freshman in college.

How failure, dehydration, and fear of dropping out made me a better person.

“Hey, I came to talk to you because I’m worried about my grade in this class. I really don’t want to fail, and was hoping you could give me tips to help me in the course.”

“Well, the professor did tell us he is hoping to fail more students this semester. If you are already failing, you’ll probably just fail”.

It was freshman year. I was in a Computer Science “weed-out” class at Carnegie Mellon University called “The Great Theoretical Ideas of Computer Science”, or typically referred to by it’s course number, 251. I was 18 years old, struggling with anxiety and stress, and my own teaching assistant told me I was going to fail. To say I was upset would have been a huge understatement. I called my mom crying because I knew I couldn’t endure this class for another semester, and I knew that if I didn’t complete it, I would have to drop out of Computer Science or CMU all together. I was sleep deprived from spending countless hours on the homework assignments for this class, and I just wanted to give up on everything right then and there.

I decided to see a therapist.

I’m fortunate enough to go to a university which provides us with 12 free sessions at our on-campus counseling center, and boy was it my time to use them. I went every week for a few months, originally talking about my stress levels with 251 and the rest of my workload, but eventually moving onto everything from relationships to my family. I loved spending an hour each week to just talk about everything that was on my chest. My therapist would always just listen and occasionally provide input and questions to make me think about what I just said (which I guess makes sense seeing as he is a therapist), but just being able to talk about it seemed to make each piece not quite as heavy.

My workload didn’t change, but giving myself that hour every week to dedicate to my mental health really helped a lot. Stress, anger, and frustration no longer built up over 3-4 week periods, but instead were released in small bursts every 7 days. Going to therapy not only helped reduce my stress levels, but taught me a valuable life lesson: being in therapy is not a bad thing. This may seem obvious, but so many people today associate therapy with severe mental disorders or being “crazy”. I don’t have a severe mental disorder, nor would I call myself crazy, but I did see a therapist for once a week for over 2 months, and I can happily say it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I now recommend that my friends do the same when I see or hear about them struggling with stress and anxiety. Many have gone and had a similar experience.

When my TA told me I was going to fail, I doubted everything about myself. I thought I was stupid. I felt alone. I thought I was the only one struggling this much. I worried about dropping out. I worried about my future. I felt the same feelings of depression I thought I had long since gotten rid of. I finally realized that I needed help. This was another life lesson I needed to learn: it’s ok to ask for help. Again, this seems obvious, but for someone who has many things come easily to him, and frequently provides help to others, this was hard to accept. It takes a little bit of time, but you find that asking for help brings you closer to other people, and doesn’t bother / inconvenience people like I thought it would. Many people actually enjoy helping others and answering questions. Crazy, I know, but it’s true. (Yes, those last two lines were sarcasm. When is HTML going to come out with a <sarcasm> tag?)

Finally, I learned about priorities. Your body and mind come first, always. Throughout the course of my second semester Freshman year, I stopped eating, sleeping, and taking care of myself. My work always took precedence, and I had so much of it that I didn’t have time for myself. I learned my lesson the hard way one morning when I woke up and nearly fell off my ladder coming down from my lofted bed. My legs were so weak I couldn’t stand up. I had difficulty breathing. I sat down and the world didn’t stop spinning to the point where I swear I passed out for a very brief moment. I called my mom in a panic:

“Mom… it’s hard… to breathe and… everything is spinning…. I’m scared.”

“Tyler, call 911. I love you. Call me when you can, but call 911 right now.”

I called our campus EMS (we aren’t supposed to call 911 on campus), and the police and EMS student volunteers arrived within minutes. My blood pressure was so low they didn’t even let me stand up fearing I would collapse. I stayed in the hospital for 4-5 hours on IV to rehydrate my failing body. My parents drove all the way from Cleveland just to make sure I was alright, and ended up taking me home for a few days.

Want to know one of the worst parts? When my mom first arrived, I asked to use her iPad to send out emails to everyone I was supposed to see that day and let them know I would be late. I emailed all of my professors begging for an extension and explained I was in the hospital. I was so paranoid about my work, that it was still the main thought on my mind. Not the fact that my parents left work and drove 2 hours. Not that I had to be rushed to the hospital. And not that I was so dehydrated I was lucky to still be conscious. My priorities were not in the right order.

When I was recovering at my parent’s house, I realized how skewed my priorities had become, and sought to fix it. I started to eat healthy again, and always made a point to grab meals when I needed them. I started to carry around a water bottle everyday, kept going to therapy, and asked more and more questions even if I thought they were stupid. My mood began to stabilize, I actually got more sleep, and I even passed the class. Things weren’t easier, I just had a better outlook on it all, and finally had my priorities in the right order.

I had a relatively miserable freshman year in terms of academics, but I learned more about life than I ever thought I would. This experience has helped shape who I am today, and I constantly try to make sure other students don’t have to endure quite the same struggle I did.