Organic Chemistry: the death of all pre-med majors. Organic chemistry has the reputation of being one of the most rigorous, difficult, and mind numbing classes for almost all science majors. Anyone who manages to get a C in this class is considered lucky—and if anyone can get an A then they should have applied for Harvard. Only those who are elite and intelligent can pass this course, which is why it is known globally to weed out students. If you don't consider yourself smart, then you should already drop the course—right?
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I have always been bitter at the fact that intelligence is praised so much within our society these days. If you can listen in class and give the minimal effort while still getting an A, then by God you're a super-human. What about all the students who stay up all night trying to master the material and only to manage to get a B in the course instead of an A? Are they not smart? No, they're "dumb" because grades only reflect your potential—and don't even get me started on those standardized tests.
Naturally, I had already categorized myself as failing organic chemistry since I'm a hard worker and not a naturally smart person—I'll be lucky to get a C in the class. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I walked into my first O-chem class and heard "Smartness comes from your genes and will not get you to pass my class."
Being a smart kid doesn't even allow you to pass this class? You can imagine the sinking pit in my stomach at this point—yep, I was already making plans to drop the class. However, the rest of my teacher's rant was nothing I was expecting and taught me probably one of the most important lessons in life:
My teacher began Organic Chemistry by discussing the growth mindset. The growth mindset is essentially the idea that, as students, we need to realize that we are going to make mistakes and fail, but we need to use those mistakes to improve and grow as a student. He said that being merely smart won't help anyone pass the class—you have to be hard working and driven enough to stay in the class through all the difficult measures and learn from your mistakes. According to him, Organic Chemistry is a weed-out course because we make it one—we say we can't get into medical school because we aren't smart enough to pass this class, and we all give up. Why would one failure in the class mean you couldn't learn from your mistakes and do better next time? I began to consider what he was saying.
I couldn't help but agree with my professor on this—why are we so afraid of failure? How are we supposed to learn anything without making a few mistakes along the way? Learning is hard—we aren't supposed to be good at it yet!
Ever since we were kids, we were placed into two categories: who was smart and who was not. If you were in the not-so-smart group, you tried everything you possibly could to be put into the smart group who received pizza parties and awards for the genes their parents gave them. Or, if you weren't in the smart group, you gave up altogether and decided that you were never going to be smart and began to hate school.
What about the kids with learning disabilities who could be really "smart" but are held back because they have to work around their disability? If I had given up in first grade when I was considered not smart due to my dyslexia and couldn't read, there is no way I would've made it to Xavier University with some money in my pockets for my 4.0 GPA in high school.
We have to stop putting people in these categories—smartness isn't a stable thing. People grow in smartness, and if you aren't "smart" for a second, you shouldn't be devastated and hate yourself for it.
We need to teach our kids that they can grow in intelligence and that it is okay fail the first few times they try something new. We should praise them for being hard workers instead of praising them for their gifted inherited genes. Could you imagine a generation of kids who never gave up and always worked hard? What amazing things they could accomplish!
There have been several studies of children who improve their learning and grades when they are praised as hard working instead of being smart. Those who are told they are smart end up lying more to retain that smartness and end up more depressed when they fail themselves. Organic Chemistry is hard, school is hard and everyone is expected to struggle with it—but why do we make struggle not okay?
We need to be willing to grow in our intelligence instead of classifying ourselves in groups. We can grow in kindness, tallness, matureness, and prettiness, so why not smartness? Remember: It's okay to fail because we can grow from it.
"No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow your progress is, you're still ahead of everyone else who isn't trying." - Tony Robbins
