I failed three courses in my first semester of university. Now, I am the English and Modern Languages Coordinator at CNC.
Each year, thousands of first-year students struggle with the rigours of postsecondary life. Sometimes, like me, they fail courses and wind up on academic probation. If you are one of these students, I want to help you turn your struggles into success.
As a long serving English instructor at CNC, I promote curiosity, critical thinking, problem solving, and a failure-positive attitude towards learning. How can you achieve or model success if you have not struggled with or failed at something first?
I believe you are anti-fragile, and with hard work and mentorship you can develop knowledge, skills, and strategies that will help you become a force in the world. When I think about being failure-positive, it’s about giving students a safe place to take risks and try new ideas.
For example, I tell my writing students that an essay is attempt or a try at sharing consciousness. When we write essays, we know that a lot can and probably will go wrong. We are trying to take an idea, a living idea, and articulate it in a style that another human being will understand. Only after prewriting, writing, peer-editing, workshopping, revising, and revising again can we be assured of some modicum of success.
In other words, the writing process is a lot like the learning process. With hard work and good mentorship, we learn from our mistakes and master the skills that will lead us to success.
Was your first year of postsecondary a bust? Are you on academic probation? I firmly believe CNC is uniquely equipped to help you get your academic career back on track.
Along with our small class sizes, our student-centred instructors who promote critical thinking, problem solving, and a failure-positive attitude towards learning.
I am here to help you turn your first-year struggles into second-year successes.