So, this is a post that I didn't think I, personally, would ever have the experience to write about. Today, I withdrew from Arabic. Now, that may come as a shock to those of you who know how excited I've been about taking the language since well before I even enrolled in the class (to be honest, well before I even started college), but here's the thing: sometimes, you need to take into consideration your priorities and your health.
Don't get me wrong, I actually love Arabic. I think it's a beautiful and interesting language, that when I'm in class I really enjoy learning. However, it's also a super difficult language, and it requires a lot of extra hours put into studying it. Which would be fine, if I wasn't also still not fluent in Chinese and taking 3 300 level courses this semester.
I think the bottom line is, you need to do what is right for your health and for your overall academic situation. For me, Arabic is something that I have wanted to pursue for a while and is something that I would definitely consider getting back into in the future, but at the moment, it's not something that I have the time for. Also, I've been so super stressed these past few weeks and it was coming from all sorts of sides, and so having one less source of stress will be good.
I'm definitely not the kind of student who goes into a course thinking, oh if I don't like it or it's too hard, I can just drop it. I hate giving up and I am not particularly fond of asking for help; I like to get things done on my own. But there is a line where you need to look up and see how far down you've fallen in terms of work and stress. Today was the first time I felt up to cooking for myself in at least a week. That doesn't happen. I love cooking and it's something that I do even when I've got a million things on my plate; so, for me, that was one sign.
Seeing that W in place of what I would hope would have been an A (but because of all the stress I was under and how much it was effecting all my work, might not have been), does send a shock to my system. I don't like it. I'm not going to lie. I do not like seeing that W there, even if it doesn't effect my GPA. However, I know that a W is much better than F, which I feel I may have been in danger of receiving if I had kept struggling with managing everything.
My priorities right now are in Chinese and Political Science. Those are the two things that I know I am in it for the long haul with. I would have liked to have had Arabic be another, but it's just not something that is feasible. I'm sure there are people who could handle it, and that's fine, but it wasn't a situation that I was handling well.
And, I'm not going to lie about this either, pressing that button and withdrawing from the course felt good too. It sucks to know that this is something I couldn't handle, but it feels good to know that I have less stress to deal with now. I put a lot of time and effort into the class, and it's irritating to know that it won't mean anything now, but that was a lot of time and effort that probably should have gone into other things. I'm still doing well in my classes, I just want to be able to do my best, and now I think I can.
This was really difficult for me to write. I do write some reflective, personal things here, but this is probably the most personal post that I have ever contributed. I don't particularly want to talk about it too much, but I do think that it's important for people to see that this is an option. That if you're stressing out and not coping well, taking the W isn't the end of your life. Don't just drop because of silly reasons, though, please. You owe it to yourself to try your hardest, always, but if your hardest is battling with stress and anxiety, then that's when you need to question if withdrawing isn't the right thing to do. Tomorrow is the last day that you can withdraw with just a grade of W and no penalty, for this semester, so I wanted to write this today, just in case this was something that anybody was dealing with at the moment.
I have turned off comments, however, do feel free to email me if you want to talk about anything. Withdrawing from courses, stress, really anything that is related to your time here at Macaulay Hunter. xo Maya
