Dealing with Failure
The Truth is: it Happens to Everyone
Final grades have started to be posted for Term 1. Some of you may failed courses for the very first time in your lives. No question, seeing that F grade in your SSC can be really painful. It might help to know that more of your friends are sharing these feelings than you might guess.
Marten Dee / UBC Brand & Marketing
The perceived stigma of failure can make it hard to talk about amongst friends. But the reality is Engineering is a tough program. If you are in your first year of Engineering, the learning curve you need to climb to transition from high school learning to university learning is very steep. And you need to climb this hill at the same time as you absorb complex technical content at high volume. In upper years, you will face new challenges as you take on increasingly complex and specialized problem-solving. And then, you need to add-in 2020: a global pandemic, social isolation, online learning, time zone issues, etc, etc, etc. Along the way… Failed courses happen .
This post is about what really happens when you fail a course. We aim to distinguish between the true consequences that may result from failing a course in Term 1 and the unkind mental chatter that may be running through your mind as you digest the news about your F grade.
“Failing a course is not a signal that you don’t belong in
Engineering or at UBC. It is a signal that you need to change the way you study.”
The truth is: smart people occasionally fail courses. What the smartest people do next is figure out what they can learn from failure and how they can use this information to grow and improve.
What is an F grade?
If your final percentage grade is lower than 49.9%, you have failed the course. No credits will be granted for failed courses and they cannot be used to meet pre-requisites. For Engineering students, most of the time, you will need to repeat any failed courses as soon as possible to progress in your program.
The final grade, expressed as a percentage, will be used to calculate your weighted average. The difference between 0 and 49.9% will be significant for GPA calculations. F grades will remain on the transcript, regardless of whether the student repeats the course later.
Failing a course can change your Term 2 registration
If you fail a course, what happens next? The first thing you need to find out: is the course I failed a pre-requisite for any of my Term 2 courses? If yes: as a general rule, if you do not meet the course pre-requisites, you will be de-registered from the course. Pre-requisites matter because they make sure that all students in the class arrive with the right preparation and background info required to understand the course material. UBC enforces pre-requisites to make sure students are ready to build on a strong foundation of prior knowledge and are set up for success. You can check the pre-requisites for your Term 2 courses by reading their course descriptions in SSC or by meeting with your academic advisor.
For first year Engineering students, here is a list of Term 1 courses to watch out for:
| Pre-requisite course | Term 2 course |
|---|---|
| MATH 100 | MATH 101 |
| MATH 152* |
|
| PHYS 157 | PHYS 158 |
| CHEM 120 | CHEM 115 |
| CHEM 130 | |
| *At the discretion of the MATH department | |
Failing a course can delay your progression in the Engineering program
Many Engineering courses are offered only once a year, with a few exceptions offered in summer. Any course you fail, you need to wait until the next time it is offered to repeat it… and to meet pre-requisites for future courses, which can have a cascading effect. We strongly recommend that you meet with your Year 1 ESS academic advisor or your Year 2-5 program advisor for course planning if you have failed any courses, or if your registration differs in any way from the standard timetable for your program.
UBC CHBE Undergraduate Website
Failing a course can change your academic standing
If you have failed one or more courses in Term 1, this does not mean that you will be unable to continue your studies UBC or be unable to take courses in Term 2. Students have the full timeline of the Winter session to demonstrate their academic performance to the university (September to April). UBC will review your academic record over the summer and we will use your Winter sessional average to determine your Academic Standing, as outlined in our published Academic Regulations. This review is referred to as sessional evaluation.
To continue in the Engineering program, you are expected to meet the following requirement after the completion of the 2020 Winter Session (September 2020 to April 2021):
Year 1
• An overall average of at least 60% on all courses attempted.
Year 2-5
• An overall average of at least 55% on all courses attempted
• English/Communication requirements, see Complementary Studies section.
Even if you had a rough time in Term 1, this means you still have another Term to build your average back up. So long as the weighted average for all your Winter session courses meets the minimum standards detailed in our Academic Regulations, you can continue to study at UBC and work on improving your grades.
Failure can provide you with valuable information
Here at ESS, we like to think about grades as a form of valuable feedback. Your grades can help you evaluate your current study plan: is the plan working or does it need improvement? You can and you will adapt the way you manage your time, complete assignments, and study and write tests over the course of completing your degree. Grades will help you adjust your path by letting you know what strategies to keep and which ones to lose.
Finding the opportunity in failure is a valuable life skill that will serve as a source of strength for the rest of your life. Everyone faces obstacles at some point in their life, this is inevitable. The sooner you can master the life skill of facing disappointment with courage, determination and a willingness to grow, the more resilient you will be.
“Accepting failure as a first step does not mean giving up, but can be a strong
motivation that drives you to be your best… First year engineering can be hard, and
momentarily defeating, but when choosing to change the way we see and do things, amazing results can be achieved.”
Tala Khalil, Year 2 Chemical Engineering student
Learning to accept failure is a life-long journey for everyone. You can benefit from a few tried and true, road tested strategies that will help you to digest an experience of failure and extract the information and motivation you need to move forward.
Jamil Rhajiak / UBC Brand & Marketing
1. Face your fear of failure and feel your emotions
Most of us avoid failure at all costs. When failure finally happens, it is normal to be scared. In addition to our rational fears about what happens next, many of us are simply afraid to feel the feelings that come with failure: afraid to feel pain, anger, shame and disappointment.
However, if you can allow yourself to be present and experience negative emotions, it will help you to digest the experience more quickly. Try to avoid the temptation to escape with bad habits, doom scrolling, binge watching, etc, etc, etc. Even more tempting, avoid the impulse to minimize your pain by pretending that you didn’t really want the thing that you failed at or that you don’t really care.
When sitting with painful feelings, try as much as possible to focus on the feeling itself, rather than ruminating on the details of how things went wrong. In time, these uncomfortable feelings can become future motivation for you to work harder and find solutions.
2. Sort through your rational and irrational ideas about failure
Many of us have deep-seeded ideas about failure that we need to unlearn. For example, does it make any sense to think that failure makes us inherently bad? Or can we feel kind of proud because we are challenging ourselves to do something hard?
Avoid catastrophizing and try to maintain a realistic perspective on how much a failed grade can really affect your long-term future. Will you need to repeat the course? Yes. Is it reasonable to think you will never land your dream job? No. Many successful people you know and admire have one or two failed courses in their academic history. It is rare for employers to look at transcripts, and when they do, they will be looking for your overall achievements. Showing a clear pattern of growth and improvement can even be an asset.
3. Don’t give up
Here is a very common, but very dangerous internal narrative about failure to be avoided at all costs: now that I’ve failed, who cares what I do next? Don’t write yourself off and rationalize bad choices.
For example, let’s say you know you bombed a final. Yes, you should give yourself a real break afterward to unwind and let it go. But make sure that when you wake up the next morning, you do something to move yourself closer to your goals, like working out or studying for your next final. This is not the right time to make a big life decision like changing programs or dropping out of school.
Marten Dee / UBC Brand & Marketing
4. Accept an appropriate amount of responsibility
When you take inventory of the events that led to your failed grade, you will likely discover a combination of factors that were within your control and factors that were not. Effective self-reflection will help you understand the difference.
You can’t control everything and you never will. Blaming yourself entirely won’t help you learn how to navigate and make decisions in a complex world. On the other hand, entirely blaming others and external circumstances may prevent you from effectively learning from failure.
5. Make a plan to move forward
After a period of reflection, it will be time to shift focus and plan your new strategy for success in Term 2. The break between Terms is a perfect time to do a tune up on your study skills. Consider devoting some time to make intentional improvements to your academic skills before the busy Term is back in full swing and you are being hit with deadlines every week.
Whenever you are ready to sharpen your academic toolbox, UBC has resources ready to help. Visit the Chapman Learning Commons online and check out their wonderful series of Student Toolkits. Start with Preparing for Exams and Managing Your Time.
We acknowledge that F grades can be painful to receive and we encourage you to be kind to yourself. Give yourself permission to feel disappointed or sad for a while. But with a little time, we encourage you to move past the emotion and think about what an F grade can teach you about your study habits and/or your mastery of the material. Anytime you can repurpose negative feelings into a source of motivation to do better, you become temporarily bulletproof. Building your resilience will allow you to unlock the hidden opportunity inside failure and push yourself a little closer to the best version of yourself.
Catherine McInnis
Academic Advisor, Domestic and International
Posted: December 18, 2020