Growth Mindset
After reading through Carol Dweck's video transcripts, I have to say that she took the words right out of my mouth. I have always noticed this mindset although I never pieced it together like she has. Having grown up in a traditional Asian household and being the oldest child of a first generation of students in America in my extended family, my parents, grandparents, even aunts and uncles were always on my butt about my grades. "Anything below an 'A' is an 'F'."
While I enjoyed school through most of my childhood, once I entered junior high my grades started to slack. It wasn't even that the classes were hard, it was that I had lost motivation. The way I had been raised had put so much pressure on me to where I went through that rebellious teenage depressive phase and stopped caring about anything at all. Even then, there was always a little voice in the back of my head that pressured me to make good grades, asides from my parents grounding me for unsatisfactory grades anyway. So I compromised with myself and made A's and B's, which were honestly not bad grades at all, but to me a "B" basically stood for being "bad to the bone." I thought I was so cool.
Anyway, that continued up to high school, where eventually I had to face the ACT. My mom bought 8 different ACT practice test books, each as thick as dictionary. I went through each of them, multiple times. I came out with a 30 on my ACT, which sadly was just one point away from receiving $2000 more in scholarship here at OU, but I was able to get into the Honors College with that score so that satisfied my parents enough. I told myself I still didn't care about school or college, and that I only tried so hard with the ACT to save my family money, which is partially true. I had felt that I was pressured to go into college, having been raised with that goal in mind my whole life I didn't really consider any other route.
Fast forward, now I'm a junior in college and boy, have things changed. So my first two years here my grades went from average, to terrible, to all A's and a couple B's. I had kept my rebellious streak my first two years, where I had what Dweck calls a "fixed mindset." It didn't help that I didn't have a real idea of what I wanted to pursue in life either, so I felt that I was going to classes for nothing. The fall of my sophomore year I failed a class, which ultimately made me get myself together. The class that I had failed was a core class that would have affected my whole major if I was not able to make all A's in my remaining core classes. I would have had to completely reroute my college career and choose a major from an entirely different departmental college.
At first, I let this affect me terribly. With this fixed mindset on having failed a class I had decided that I wasn't cut out for college, that I wasn't smart enough, that I was a failure. I was ready to drop out. The two things keeping me from dropping out was that I wouldn't be able to open up my own pet cafe and no-kill animal shelter and the fear of not knowing what to do next without college.
My dog and my boyfriend were a great means of support for me the following semester, but it was my changed mindset that had really made an impact. Growth. I was focused on getting all A's, yes, but I didn't want to work myself to death over it. I went inactive in my sorority for the semester, only participated in events that would only give me minimal stress, spent more time focusing on myself, with my dog, and ultimately studying. I was growing, and I was thriving. By the end of the semester I made all A's and one B and was able to continue on with my current major! This mindset continued on with me as I went to study abroad in France for the summer as well, and will hopefully continue on this semester and the rest.
In the beginning, I was so focused on not failing that I almost missed the whole point of school. To learn. And you learn from your mistakes, from your past. You don't learn anything from doing nothing wrong. You have to mess up to learn, you have to mess up to grow.
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| Source: 4 Ways Bad Grades Can Ruin Your Football Career |
Anyway, that continued up to high school, where eventually I had to face the ACT. My mom bought 8 different ACT practice test books, each as thick as dictionary. I went through each of them, multiple times. I came out with a 30 on my ACT, which sadly was just one point away from receiving $2000 more in scholarship here at OU, but I was able to get into the Honors College with that score so that satisfied my parents enough. I told myself I still didn't care about school or college, and that I only tried so hard with the ACT to save my family money, which is partially true. I had felt that I was pressured to go into college, having been raised with that goal in mind my whole life I didn't really consider any other route.
Fast forward, now I'm a junior in college and boy, have things changed. So my first two years here my grades went from average, to terrible, to all A's and a couple B's. I had kept my rebellious streak my first two years, where I had what Dweck calls a "fixed mindset." It didn't help that I didn't have a real idea of what I wanted to pursue in life either, so I felt that I was going to classes for nothing. The fall of my sophomore year I failed a class, which ultimately made me get myself together. The class that I had failed was a core class that would have affected my whole major if I was not able to make all A's in my remaining core classes. I would have had to completely reroute my college career and choose a major from an entirely different departmental college.
At first, I let this affect me terribly. With this fixed mindset on having failed a class I had decided that I wasn't cut out for college, that I wasn't smart enough, that I was a failure. I was ready to drop out. The two things keeping me from dropping out was that I wouldn't be able to open up my own pet cafe and no-kill animal shelter and the fear of not knowing what to do next without college.
My dog and my boyfriend were a great means of support for me the following semester, but it was my changed mindset that had really made an impact. Growth. I was focused on getting all A's, yes, but I didn't want to work myself to death over it. I went inactive in my sorority for the semester, only participated in events that would only give me minimal stress, spent more time focusing on myself, with my dog, and ultimately studying. I was growing, and I was thriving. By the end of the semester I made all A's and one B and was able to continue on with my current major! This mindset continued on with me as I went to study abroad in France for the summer as well, and will hopefully continue on this semester and the rest.
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| Source: Pixnio. |
Wow, Julia, thank you SO MUCH for sharing your story here. I am really glad you got in touch with your own motivation to grow and learn so that you are now involved in a major that is connected to your passion for animals and your future hopes and plans. I totally (!!!) agree with what you say there at the end about making messes and learning from mistakes: writing is all about trying new things and experimenting, and I hope you learn lots from the different kinds of writing in this class to help you with your other classes and also with your future animal plans. As you've seen, I make lots of growth mindset cat graphics; maybe your Benji can be the star of some growth mindset dog graphics too! :-)
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