Good Thing It's a Course Central To My Degree

Oh but it has a challenging final exam.

I took three attempts, failing the middle one, and (because the last grade counts) retaking another time, that time achieving exactly the points I had the first time.

My middle and high school self (straight As actually) would be appaled. I say, after checking with a super approachable lecturer: papers, blog posts, … profile count, not only grades, especially if the exam is known the hard. The cool thing is, I am actually looking at potential post-grad study in this group, and they teach what they care about so that gives me a leg-up-

The down-side is, applying for outside schools and programs and fellowships/stipends and the like becomes harder.

One option was put on the table: I retake the exam in one year, when I am probably still in this Masters, and since this stuff (and I like it actually) is central to my degree, try and do it from a place of practice. However, does that place translate to a perfect score? This might not be the case, since the questions are super convoluted and the whole setup … well, let's say, grades really don't say everything here.

This Works

I actually did try, and I am not sure I could have tried much harder, so there. I'll take the pass and focus on what I care about.

Really Fundamental

It's about attitutude and priorities fundamentally: good scores vs impact is where I see my choice, see rX - this marks a shift in my academic outlook, as I come back to if full time (so to speak).