Recipe for Disaster

Step one.
"Oh, sure guys, I'll take BIOS 206 with you. I mean, I'm no good at biology but it should be fun to suffer through our natural sciences credits together.

Step two.
"Well, I mean...my grade on the first test wasn't that bad, I should have to study too much harder for the second one."

Step three.
"Hmm...I have a test in three hours. I haven't even read two of the chapters it's over. But that's okay, I mean I'm going to fail anyway. I probably won't fail TOO epic-ly."

Step four.
"Err...well, I guessed on ninety percent of these questions. There's no point in re-reading them. It seems weird that I finished that test in ten minutes, but I'm sure I'm not giving myself enough credit. I mean...educated guesses will get me SOME points at least."

I am chastising myself so heavily right now that I'm not even sure I should be blogging, it'll just come out sounding like a bunch of self-loathing mopery. Is it an appropriately strong reaction to want to crawl in a hole and drop out of school just because I might not make the Dean's List this quarter? Maybe I should do the math first. I mean, I can't possibly get like...worse than a C in that class as long as I retake the first two tests. And he won't let us retake the final or anything, but I DO have my online quiz grades to consider and I'll just promise myself to study super-hard for the final and maybe I can continue my "have never gotten below a B- in a college course" streak.

What have we learned, children?

Don't take a class you know you'll do poorly in just because your friends are taking it too.

and more importantly,

Don't underestimate your own capacity for failure.