Question 3:
How do you manage a constant fear of failing a course, the real and valid fear we won't be progressing in the program along with our peers?
Answer 1:
Thank you for reaching out! I want to start this off by saying that most (if not all) of your peers are having this same exact thought at one point or another. It can definitely be hard not to compare yourself to others in such a fast-paced and high-stress environment but I find that it helps to remind myself that I made it this far in the program and that I’m indeed “good enough” to be here. Additionally, your peers and your professors are here to support you. Make a study group with your friends, reach out to your instructors if a lecture doesn’t make sense, and make time for non-school related activities to avoid burn-out. Remember, pharmacy school is tough but so are you for making it this far and you’re not going through it alone! Just focus on doing your best and even if you do fall behind, it’s not the end of the world since there is a team of people who are dedicated to helping you catch-up, graduate, and become a great pharmacist. Finally, don’t be afraid to reach out to us again in the future - we’ve been in your shoes and we’re here for you!
Answer 2:
I just wanted to start by saying this is such a great question, I know I’ve personally had this fear and so many others probably share the same fear! Sometimes it can feel like a back-of-the-mind shadow that is constantly looming over your thoughts, so I wanted to share a mental health tool called “playing the script til the end” that I learned from counselling services at uWaterloo!
A lot of times our anxious minds make jumps from one idea to the next without a logical progression of events as to how we got to our final thought. So for example, we start by thinking, “what if I fail this test?”, and then somehow it ends up being, “I’m going to end up homeless on the streets”. The fact is, so many things will have had to go wrong before you would go from failing a single test to ending up on the streets. In order to “play the script to the end”, we would have to slow down and look at what might happen hypothetically in a stepwise manner. Another thing that we’d have to take into account is what our capabilities are when we are placed in those hard situations. I genuinely believe everyone who’s gotten into as competitive of a program as Waterloo pharmacy is extremely competent, and oftentimes we forget how resourceful and resilient we are.
So back to our test-failing example: chances are, being the resourceful pharmacy students that we are, we’ll likely search for support to see if we can improve our mark before we even end up failing our course. Say we can’t fix up our mark in time before the course ends and we do end up being held back a semester, what would happen then? We’d have some time to re-group and review our past material. Pharmacy school is extremely content heavy, and having that extra year to relearn and master the material we’ve covered previously could make us that much better of a pharmacist in the long term. Maybe we even pick up an extra job and gain some pharmacy experience so that we can be more competitive during co-op recruitment. While being held back behind our peers will likely be hard, I also see it as an opportunity. Having the chance to work with two different cohorts would double your network as a future pharmacist. Also, now you’ll have resources from your friends who have taken these courses recently and they could easily lend you a hand if you ever needed help. After having some time to recuperate, you’d be back and more ready than ever to tackle your next semester!
I know the fear of failing is so daunting, and even though we don’t want to think about it, the thought probably pops up in our mind and we don’t know what to do with it. By taking that thought and “playing it out til the end”, we realize that it might not turn out as bad as we think, and even in the hardest situations, we can still find a bright side to it. I want to finish off by saying: you are more capable and adaptable than you think, and I have every faith that you’ll do great things no matter what comes your way! Hope this helped!
Answer 3:
Hey! Thanks for reaching out and I just want to let you know that what you’re feeling right now is a totally valid emotion to feel and I would even say a very common thought that all of us have had in pharmacy school. Pharmacy school is hard and failing a course is always in the back of our minds so I think that sometimes it might be better to try to turn it around and use it to our benefit. Try to analyze why you could be feeling the fear of failure; is it because the content is very hard? If so, are there ways to help me improve my study? You can try to determine the reasons for why you are feeling that way and try to create solutions to improve it. Reaching out to your friends and peers I find always helps as well as they might have their set of tips and tricks that they use.
In the cases of failure, oftentimes it might not end up being bad after all. We understand that failure happens, and your peers and support network will try to help you go through the tough times. You may not progress alongside your peers, but the friendships made with them will always be there. There are always opportunities in and out of school that you can participate together to make memories and have a good time.
Lastly, one little trick that I often like to use that helps me bring a better perspective to things that are stressing me out is the 10-10-10 rule. The 10-10-10 rule is just a simple way of asking yourself if what is worrying you will matter in 10 days? 10 months? And 10 years? I think that by gaining a bigger perspective on what is worrying you really does help you manage and determine if it’s something worth stressing over about.
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