I remember my first day of high school and how I couldn't wait for these next four years to fly by. Like most people, I couldn't wait to graduate and go off to college. I'd seen family members and friends go away to school and they always seemed so happy. They were living their life, going to school and becoming that much closer to doing what they wanted with their lives. I secretly always admired all of them, because they all automatically knew what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives once college came around, I mean that's how it seemed at least. I wanted that for myself, at 16-years-old I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and I knew that the only thing standing in the way of my career was getting that college diploma. But I figured, how hard could that be, after spending the last fourteen years of my life in school? But boy, was I in for a surprise.

I graduated high school four years ago, and since then, I've learned a lot. Not really much education wise, but more about life and all of the lessons it's taught me since then. Although I've learned most of my lessons in life by things going wrong, or things falling apart, I've also learned one of my most important lessons in life through failing. Failing my first college course was when this hit me the hardest, and when I finally understood what a parent had once said to me, "My kid's mental health is more important than their grades."

Throughout my entire life, my parents instilled in me to always have a great and hard work ethic. They taught me to shoot for the stars because if I tried my hardest, there's no way that I could ever fail. Elementary school and middle school were a breeze for me, much like everyone else. I went to a private Catholic school, so everyone in my grade was in the same classes together day in and day out. I excelled in most subjects like English and social studies, and of course, math was always a struggle for me, but I spent every night studying for the weekly Friday math tests and I always came out with an A. It wasn't until high school where the work got hard. I can't say that the work was actually hard, but there was just so much work, and I was a teenager now and school wasn't as important to me as the latest gossip that was going around school. High school was where all of those lectures that my parents had given me about having a good work ethic came into play. Instead of hanging out with my friends every Friday night, I had to make the less fun and more mature decision to get all of my projects and all of my work done before the weekend started, so I didn't have to stay up all night on Sunday rushing to get it done, sloppy at best.

Freshman year came and went and I didn't do half bad. I should probably stop being bitter about missing all of those Friday night hangouts at the mall with my friends, just to get all of my work done on time, because I guess it paid off. Sophomore year came next and it actually wasn't too bad. I never once had a late assignment, I passed all of my classes and I even managed to play a few school sports. Junior year came and this was the year of the most work so far. Looking back, it wasn't nearly as much work as I felt it was at the time, but school work took up more of my time than anything else. But this was the year that I found my passion for animals and I realized that my goal in life was to own and run my own animal rescue sanctuary. What is the only thing stopping me? Graduating high school first and foremost, but going to college, majoring in business, and getting a veterinary technician degree. But to do that? I knew I needed those college diplomas.

Senior year came and went faster than ever, and I was off to college! This is where the fun starts, right? In most cases, the answer to that question would always be yes, but for me, it was a little different. I decided to stay home and attend the local community college while also working a retail job on the side. All of my life, people made college sound like this great place to be, where the party never stops and you have the most fun you'll ever have in life. Well, let me tell you, expectations are not always reality.

I started my first semester of college and I was so excited. I took twelve credits, which wasn't too bad, plus I had some pretty easy classes with some pretty awesome professors. I finished the semester with a pretty decent GPA and I was really proud of myself for making it through my first college semester!

Next came my second semester. Notice how I don't sound as excited for my second semester as I did my first? Well, I started the semester with some pretty hard classes, and this time, my job decided they didn't really want to work with my school schedule. So on top of all of the school work I had, I was also working almost thirty hours a week. Which doesn't seem like a lot, but when you have research papers due every other day, algebra assignments due every other day, and speeches to write, rehearse and present every week, all while spending at least eight hours a day at work, time didn't seem as long as it once did. This is where I started to struggle.

I've never been too good at math, I mean I can count on my fingers, but don't ask me to do much more than that because you'll be very disappointed! I took college algebra and I struggled a lot. I read through the book hundreds of times, I looked online for ways that I could learn to solve these math problems in an easier way, I met with my professor as much as I could, but I just wasn't getting it. I spent every night up until all hours of the morning trying to get all of this work done. If it wasn't math that I was struggling with, it was perfecting my speech outlines before I presented in front of the entire class. I spent so much time stressing about school, about getting my work done, about getting good grades, that I felt myself get more anxious than ever.

Every time I tried to talk to my parents about how much I was struggling, their response was always the generic parent response of "Try harder." I was trying the hardest I absolutely could, and they didn't see that no matter how much I explained it. I told my parents how stressed I was, how much sleep I was losing over all of this, over passing a class. But none of that seemed to matter to them because if I tried my hardest there was no way that I could ever fail, right? Wrong. That saying doesn't apply to college because you can try your absolute hardest and still fail.

I felt my anxiety hit an all-time high, worse than it's ever been, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't pass the exams. I wanted my parents to see how hard I was trying, how hard I was working, just like they'd taught me my entire life, but all they saw were my failing exams. And that hit me really hard, that no matter how hard I was trying to pass this silly college class, I wasn't good enough at it to pass. Then I remember the time one of my friend's parents said to me "My kid's mental health is more important than their grades" and I wished my parents would've believed that too. I wished my parents would've seen what trying to pass this one class along with all the others, was doing to me. But I was expected to work my hardest and pass everything. And guess what, I wound up failing the class despite all of the nights I stayed up studying, despite all of the time I spent asking my professor questions, despite how much sleep I lost that semester and despite how hard I tried to pass.

It was something as silly as failing a college class that made that sentence hit me harder than anything had in a long time. For most of us, its been a while since our parents were in college, so they seem to forget how hard it can be, how much time and effort you have to devote to it and how straining it can be on our minds and self-esteem. They don't realize that sometimes our mental health suffers because we're trying so hard to get the good grades to graduate, and for them to be proud of us. It took failing a class for me to realize that my mental health was worth more important than an A in some college algebra class.

We all have goals and we all have dreams. But we all also have the instinct to put our mental health below getting good grades, and that is the worst thing we could possibly do. While good grades are important to all of us, they should never be worth getting to the point where we can't function because our anxiety is so bad, or we're so stressed over passing a class that it's making us sick. While getting that college diploma will be the best feeling in the world, please remember to keep your mental health in mind. It's okay to lose some sleep to finish a paper, to finish a project, to finish up some assignments, but it is not okay to think that you are not good enough because you didn't do as well as you had hoped to in a class, or maybe you didn't even pass the class. College is an experience, one that our mental health should never have to suffer from.

Although college is such an experience, it has the biggest opportunity to let us fail. If we don't make it through college, if we don't pass the classes, we think our goals and our dreams are out of reach or are unattainable. Some of our career goals may be unrealistic without that college diploma, but parents need to realize that without being in the right mental state, we'll never do our jobs well or maybe even successfully, even with the college diploma. More parents need to see how much their kids are struggling mentally and realize that nothing is worth that, not even an A in college algebra.