Mediocre Me

In August 2009, I was sitting in an auditorium when 95 strangers, embarking on a new journey.  My dreams had finally come true- I was in vet school. Yay me! One of the first things we heard during our orientation was the standard "look to your left, look to your right, one of these people may not be here when you graduate."  We were also reminded that even though many of us were at the top of our classes before, many of us would be at the bottom of the class in vet school.  I honestly had never heard that before, and it scared me.  Soon we met students from other classes and at some point heard what seems to be a popular vet school slogan, "C equals DVM."  In other words, grades don't really matter. Get Cs, and you will still get your DVM just like the person with straight As.  (Let's not mention the flaw in that considering that if one did get straight Cs, which equals a 2.0 grade point average, they would be below standards for most schools, but I digress.) No one wants to fail, because in vet school failing one class isn't like failing one class as an undergraduate that you get to retake.  In vet school failing one class means you aren't in vet school anymore. Now filled with the fear of being that person who would fail, I began to live by the C=DVM slogan.  Worst mistake I ever made. 

Now don't get me wrong, I was trying. I was studying. My classmate Eboni and I were often at school studying well after midnight. But for some reason, for the first time in my life, I developed test anxiety. Maybe being told that I might be one of the ones to fail was part of it.  But I went into each test more nervous than I'd been about anything in my life, thinking "if I fail this test... there are only two other exams in this class... did I study enough, etc" and I'd go in, take my seat, and my mind went blank. I'd often spend the first 20 minutes of an exam so freaked out, then have to rush to try to finish in the 40 minutes that remained.  I'd second guess myself and often ended up changing correct answers to incorrect ones.  I started having an upset stomach the day of each exam. Quite frankly after all that I was going through each exam day, "passing" was good  enough for me.  Before I knew it, Cs became a standard for me, and  I was just happy they weren't Ds or Fs, and was reminded constantly by classmates and others that C=DVM.  But it doesn't. When your test anxiety leads you to the point where you make a D and end up meeting with the academic committee, C no longer equals DVM. At that point the Cs tell them that you aren't trying hard enough, that if they gave you another chance you would still just barely scrape through.  

Once the committee dismissed me, I was angry.  I was angry at them for not understanding that I was retaining more information than my test scores showed.  The test anxiety brought my scores down but the information was there in my brain.  I was angry at myself for not seeking help with the anxiety sooner.  I was angry that I let myself get caught in a web of mediocrity knowing that I have always been the type to strive for excellence in all that I do.  I couldn't help but think 'if I'd had more As and Bs they would have been willing to give me another chance."  But at the same time I knew that because the test anxiety was there, the scores wouldn't have been where they needed to be to show the committee that I was learning and I deserved to be there. 

So I made a decision.  No more mediocre me.  I would get help with the anxiety  and remove "C equals DVM" from my mind and my vocabulary.  Cs weren't good enough for me in high school or  college, and they damn sure won't be good enough now.  Now that I've been admitted to another vet school, I finished my first semester with 1 A and 3 Bs, and I plan to do even better this semester. Being mediocre is like being at the edge of a cliff, where one mistake can cause you to plummet into the deep abyss of failure.  For some people being "good enough" is good enough, but for me it never was, and it never shall be again.