learning to have thicker skin...

i don't know if this characteristic of mine came by nature or nurture but i always seem to have this idea that picking the hardest subject or continuing with a difficult subject and eventually doing well in it will give me a sense of pride.. in a way it's also me trying to prove that i can do anything i set my mind to which from my A levels experience doesn't quite reflect this thought process.. at the end of it all i still question if it was my lack of effort or if i truly am limited in certain ways..

so when i picked my course options this year i wanted to have one less easy subject in my list of courses.. i remembered the lecturer mentioning it would be looked upon favourably by universities should students decide to do a masters.. and i chose it also partly because i felt the course was interesting AND it was one of the few courses that they indicate year 4 undergraduate (which i'm not sure if it really means something at the end of the day coz majority of the courses are year 3 undergraduate courses but they are offered to year 4 students.. and there probably aren't enough year 4 courses for all year 4 students to choose ONLY those courses.. )

ANYWAY... despite finding the lectures interesting i found myself struggling to understand the notes, partly due to a lot of typos and a lot of equations involved in the notes.. perhaps if i worked at it enough like i did last year for my econometrics i might've done a lot better but my coursework marks were just awful... and if according to the lecturer, the notes are supposed to be the material that i work with first before consulting journal articles...i'm probably doomed since i don't get the notes to begin with!!

so...an idea came to my mind... perhaps i can still find a different course in semester 2 that i'm interested in and have the potential to do better in (because at this stage i really need to get good grades if i want to pull up my average..).. and sure enough as i browsed the course catalog again i'm reminded about my interest in behavioural economics.. and spotted another interesting course (development economics) .. 

memories of A levels time really just came flooding back... the moment i was deciding if i should retake Chemistry or drop it.. i chose to retake it based on my teacher's advice and also because at the time i felt like dropping would mean i gave up.. but at the end of the day i felt that retaking it was the worst decision i made (though overall i'm happy with where i am today partly as a result of that decision but..i think it just taught me a lesson which now makes me think about what my best course of action is...)

so .... in the end, to relate to the title in case it's not quite apparent, i think these problems pretty much just stem from the thin skin i have... thinking too much of what others might think of me and thinking that it would be humiliating to make certain choices that would make life slightly easier (it's not that the alternative courses aren't challenging at all anyway) .. if my past experience has taught me anything it's knowing when to admit defeat..

for now, i don't know if i'll be allowed to change my course (i really really hope those courses aren't fully subscribed yet ><) but i think the overall experience has just taught me to care less about the prestige and focus more on my interests..

-llen-