Not Big Enough To Fail - By Matty Jacobson

Matty Jacobson is an outstanding
student who happened to have one
bad semester. Does that make him
a bad student? Well, according to
some sources, that makes him a
horrible student. So why try if you're
not allowed to fail ever?

Don't ever expect anyone to count the quality of your character on your merits; you're only as good as the worst thing you've done.

Take a look around you. It's rampant everywhere you go. A person could be in power during serious economical growth and peace time, but what he'll be remembered for might be an affair he had with an intern. I'm talking about Greg Dunford, who was CEO of then-thriving www.doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyoudotcom.com website of the mid '90s. What, you thought I was speaking of someone else?

Regardless, the fact is it doesn't matter if you are the perfect example of ethics and purity if you happen to fail, falter or otherwise be human.

Take me, for example. I was recently pronounced Editor-in-Chief for the upcoming semesters at my college. Until last semester, I retained a very beautiful grade point average. It was always floating around a 3.5 or higher, and I put my heart and soul into the newspaper in order to make it an excellent publication.

But two required courses were dumped into my lap last semester that I was no good at whatsoever. These two courses, and my initial failure of them both, left me with 3.09 GPA and two Fs on my transcript. Now, of course I'm going to make the two up; this is the first time I've failed anything in my almost 6-semester college career.

But, do you think my merits would hold any sort of predetermination for my scholarship?

The answer, of course, is, "No."

Despite my having nothing short of an A- in my newspaper production courses, and nothing short of a B- in any other class I'd ever taken, the fact that I had two Fs last semester brought into question my being able to receive a scholarship.

Now, the terms of the scholarship are that I maintain a 2.5 GPA or higher. So, even though I'm still within scholarship range, that hasn't stopped people questioning whether or not I can actually pull off a passing grade.

Last semester was my mathematical outlier. It was the anomaly. It was a fluke. How many ways can I put this? What's baffling to me is that nobody seems interested in how stellar a student I am. Folks only seem to focus on the one semester that I happened to have two classes I couldn't comprehend.

"Prove them wrong," you say? Well, of course I intend to. But I just hope we can all start behaving a little differently. I know I'm going to make a conscious effort to stop treating people badly just because they happen to be human beings.

So you may have spoken badly about me behind my back that one time? Guess what? I'm going to remember all the good things you did for me that clearly outweigh that one thing you said. So you happen to get booked into jail for not paying a speeding ticket? Well, I'm not going to hold that against you considering you lead a life full of success. So you fail a couple of classes? Guess what? I'm going to look and see that you pass every other class during every other semester and then make the mathematical conclusion that you are a successful student and the odds are in your favor.

So, I'd appreciate the same courtesy. Thanks.