It was a week before the AP Physics exam, which would take place on a Thursday in mid-May during my sophomore year. I was hunched over my iPad screen in the Dos Pueblos High School Library, a past assignment in front of me. My friend was beside me, engrossed in a practice exam, her pencil scribbling away at answers with purposeful marks. I tried to tell myself that I should focus on the words and symbols in front of me. However, my thoughts were lost through a thick blanket of fog settling in the nooks and crannies of my brain.
When the exam date came, I wasn’t worried. When I was released early from my second period to have lunch before the test, I still wasn’t worried. Even when I was taking the exam and most of the problems didn’t make much sense to me, I couldn’t feel worried. How could I when I had no passion for the subject?
Early July brought about the release of test scores, and my friend excitedly texted me that she had received a four. Her next message asked about my results, so I switched over to my browser to find out what score I had received. Any little bit of hope I had left in me died when I saw an alarming number staring me in the face: two. For one of the first times in my life, I had failed academically.
After sharing these results with another friend, he asked me whether or not I had studied for the exam. Of course I had – I looked through formula sheets and old homework; I went to the study session our teacher hosted and tried my best on the practice exam. I really tried my best to absorb the information that I thought had been lost over a semester out of the class, but nothing stuck. The passion wasn’t there, so I couldn’t find the energy to make my best effort worth any more than a two.
Despite not feeling worried before, acknowledging that I had failed was a stressful process. I was supposed to succeed in all things academic, especially STEM; my reputation was always being the “smart kid.” While I somehow managed to leave the AP Physics classroom with an A-, the truth was that I didn’t know any less than I had before. Studying from a textbook in that class was never an environment that I was going to truly learn from. If I was going to move on from my failure, I needed to figure out the environments that were conducive to my learning style.
My junior year rolled around, meaning I was back to taking physics classes with the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy. It still wasn’t my strongest subject, but I was enjoying myself. Rather than textbook-based learning with occasional experiments, I participated in project building with explanations on the mechanisms and forces at work in those projects. Coming back to these classes forced me to realize a truth that had been right in front of me for the past two years of high school: I, like my peers around me, can succeed in Physics or any subject if I’m exposed to an engaging environment.
With a bit more confidence, I jumped at the chance to join the UCSB in their School for Scientific Thought program. I had taken a physics class with the SST once at the beginning of my sophomore year and found that their hands-on learning was also very helpful for my understanding of science. The class I chose this time was about soft matter physics, and it ignited my passion for physics. We studied chemical reactions and the science behind their occurrences, toured labs on the UCSB campus to learn how this knowledge would be applied in the field, and ended our time by using soft physics to make ice cream. I left the program feeling like I had knowledge of physics that was applicable outside of a textbook or even a classroom.
Some may say that my AP Physics experience was my fault or that I’m complaining about my own failures. While I admit that I was the one who didn’t succeed, it is important to look at the facts. The only other exam or assignment I have ever failed was a US History midterm. My need to be perfect in every academic situation forces me to avoid failure at all costs, yet I failed the Physics exam. Sure, I was the one who failed the AP exam, but the class I was in had failed me first. Based on my passions for engineering and soft matter physics, it’s clear that I can enjoy the subject and take away knowledge long after the experience. The curriculum just has to be willing to look outside of the box.
Certain classes and learning styles aren’t for everyone. A student struggling should be met with sympathy instead of blame.
Other students at DPHS shouldn’t pressure themselves the way I did. Focusing on passions (and graduation requirements, of course) should take greater precedence than aligning with standards that others have set. Pushing oneself is not always a bad thing, but partaking in something solely because of external pressure should be avoided. Instead, explore areas of interest in challenging areas or from different angles — don’t linger on failures encountered along the way. If someone gives their best and takes something meaningful from a class, that matters more than a number or letter on a screen.
