“The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?” — College essay prompt
I’ll let you in on a little secret, college application essay prompt: my life is wrapped in failure.
No, seriously. Would you like to see my Scholastic Aptitude Test score? The day I received my rating for that test, I sat down in a dismal stupor, trying to keep myself from thinking about how I would never get into the college I wanted (much less afford it) with such a mediocre score. It was grey and rainy outside, and instead of going to class and risking that my peers see my tears, I walked from Juneau-Douglas High School to Alaska & Proud with nothing but a thin cardigan, squeaky rubber oxfords and a bit of cash.
The wind was terrific; it pushed me back with every step forward and the rain left me with with cold, red bruises on my exposed skin. I sat in the market’s cafeteria, eating a mini marionberry cheesecake while thinking about all of the problems I had subjected myself to with my weak score. A student’s SAT score could determine whether or not they qualify for certain schools or financial aid packets, and when you’re a kid without a perfect GPA like me, a good score can compensate for a lot.
The second portion of this prompt is marked with more hilarity. How has failure affected my life? Well, I am a spontaneous person. When I get a bad score on a test that can determine the course of my life, I like to do something ridiculous to distract myself: like skip class and allow the weather to beat my body so that I can buy a miniature cheesecake instead of an actual lunch.
Every time I encounter failure, my mind becomes a little more disappointed, like when a teacher works hard every day to help their struggling student but their tests show no improvement. It’s no fun for the teacher or the student, and with every failure comes more self doubt. At some point, the teacher gives up and the student realizes there’s no hope. It’s a numbing experience to cycle through.
What have I learned from failure? Another terrible question. Failure is too often romanticized. If you learn something from it, the lesson doesn’t come until later in life, and sometimes it’s never realized at all. From dictation I know that something as infantile as a bad test score (despite its immense amount of leverage over my life) is hardly a good argument for placing me in the “rejected” bin at the colleges I am applying to. Yet, knowing that still does not protect you from your own crippling self doubt or sadness when failure wraps its cloak around you.
I don’t mean to sound pessimistic. However, I have always found it odd the way my mind works when I look at failure the way this question does: ignoring the inward struggle of failure by glossing it over with the potential of success. Just because you can hide dead bodies in your backyard under snow it doesn’t mean they aren’t still there.
I return to the last question: What have I learned from failure? A lot. I’ve learned that I fail so often that I don’t always recognize it, and when I do recognize it, I want to go scream. When I want to go scream, I don’t like to do it in front of others, but it’s a lot harder to move on when you’re screaming at yourself.
“Failure” is a complicated subject and this prompt is asking me to address it so narrowly, as if my experiences are subordinate to the answer my colleges want. How does one address this prompt within 600 words? I do not know, but let us hope that I do not fail.
• Tasha Elizarde is a high school senior living in Juneau. Her column comes out the third Sunday of every month. She also writes “This Day in Juneau History” for the Juneau Empire.
