Submission: Students should be more open with each other about academic pressures

“I don’t understand any of this,” I finally confided to the person sitting next to me in my Monday morning chemistry lecture. I was tired. Tired of pretending not to be completely lost in lecture and hoping I wasn’t alone. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head, “Well if you don’t get this you’re screwed. This isn’t even the hard stuff.”

I quickly tried to cover up my confusion, muttering something nonsensical to the guy about the material being boring. I was so taken aback by his response, so embarrassed that I had even said anything. He shrugged, I faced forward again, with my eyes glossy and my heart in my ears, and pretended to be completely consumed by the lecture rather than my apparent inferiority. It was only the second week of school and I already felt left behind and convinced that I was utterly hopeless.

This is one instance of many which have misled me to believe that everyone else knows what they are doing, and that out of the 340 people in the lecture hall, I am the only person whose chemistry background and skills are lacking. What happened to the straight-A student from high school?

But as it turns out, I’m not alone. I recently read a novel for a Scandinavian class called “Hunger“ about an ashamed homeless man so concerned with keeping up appearances that he refused meals and gave away any money he made in order to seem well-off. When anyone tried to help him or asked if he was homeless, he scoffed at them and gave an elaborate excuse for his condition. His pretense only led him to further self-destruction.

This plight sounds all too familiar. Change “homeless man” to “student” and it makes the daily conversations between classmates conferring about the latest midterm or homework assignment all the more clear.

It wasn’t my lack of chemistry knowledge that turned out to be disheartening. Rather, it was the notion that I was the only person feeling lost in lectures and fighting to keep up. Surrounded by so many brilliant people all hungry to succeed makes it easy to assume that everyone else is coasting along, effortlessly acing their classes. I promise you they’re not.

I’ve realized only through careful observation and the occasional slip of tongue that the people most at ease might be struggling even more than you are. Some suffer silently – just because people don’t talk about it doesn’t mean they’re not having a hard time. And hopefully this will change as people become more forthcoming about their situations and shed their shame and stigmas.

I know it’s hard. Maybe the odds are stacked against you, and the only curve is one that curves down, but improvement is possible. For the first couple weeks, I was so discouraged that I didn’t study and avoided anything chemistry-related, exacerbating what I now see as a very normal problem. However, once I took a deep breath and dove in head first, I found that learning the material is more than possible, and there are a plethora of resources at our disposal, including our professors, teaching assistants and even our own classmates.

Sure, I may not be a chemistry genius, and I may have to work a lot harder than some of my classmates, but I at least have the right to try to learn chemistry. Likewise, there is no reason for you to feel inadequate or inferior. You are here to learn and make mistakes. Remember that you earned your spot at UCLA just as much as the students sitting next to you.

Don’t ever let anyone make you think you can’t achieve something. No matter how hopeless it seems, do it, prove them wrong and prove it to yourself. I guarantee that you are not alone. If you cannot think of anyone else, think of me. I am a proud work-in-progress, unabashedly and admittedly struggling academically.

Kia is a first-year undeclared student.