For as long as I can remember, I wanted to become an engineer. As most of my engineering peers, this dream started with playing Lego. Lego was a simple, but huge part of my childhood which initiated my interest in planning, design, and building things. I would play for extended periods of time, hidden away in the attic. My parents would only know I was doing okay when they could hear the loud shuffling of me searching for the exact piece needed to complete my masterpiece. Lego offered endless hours of entertainment for the child and quiet peace for the parents until they stepped on a stray, sharp Lego Brick. After retiring from my Lego career when I entered high school, I still was very interested in learning how things worked and solving problems which drew me towards science and mathematics. My dream of becoming an engineer, but more specifically a civil engineer, continued throughout high school. I was a dedicated student in high school: I juggled multiple school sports, volunteered, and obtained excellent grades which provided me with a well-rounded student profile to get accepted into multiple post-secondary engineering programs. I was split between two great options, but I finally decided to attend a local technical institute for civil engineering because I wanted to get started immediately, instead of attending the other university and completing a year of general engineering courses and competing to get into the civil engineering program in the second year.
I was incredibly excited and proud to be starting my undergrad and civil engineering journey. On the first day of class, my immediate observation was, “wow, everyone is way older than me”. By old, I mean mainly not fresh out of high school with some understanding of what post-secondary is like. Within the first few weeks, I formed my key group of school friends, mostly other 18-year old students, new and oblivious to the world of post-secondary. I was fully aware of the difficulty of engineering during my application. At that age, I would like to say I enjoyed challenging myself and believed I could accomplish anything I set my mind to. In reality, I was nowhere near ready for the commitment and sacrifice it was going to take to graduate. The first few assignments went generally well, but for some embarrassing reason I believed that I only needed to pass my classes to continue with the program. I’m sure we all have a few moments in our past where we wished we could yell at our younger selves in order to save us from embarrassment, time wasting, or failure. As the semester continued to carry on, it did not wait up for me. My lack of commitment and self-awareness to my situation was concerning. I attempted to adapt to a full schedule of eight classes, but it was merely an attempt. After seeing some of my grades, I was initially positive and believed that I could regroup and come back from these disastrous results. This would have been possible if I spent less time playing computer games with my classmates and partying with my friends on the weekend. When November came around, I was far too behind to keep up with the workload and try to learn the material which I easily overlooked. I do appreciate the effort that I made in the last month and a half of school before exams, I spent more time studying at school and asked the senior students to tutor me in my worst subjects. However, the effort was not enough. After taking eight exams in seven days, I shortly learned afterwards that I failed two courses, and nearly two more, missing the requirement to continue to the next semester by 1%.
Author
PATRICK SMYTHE
Project Manager
Civil Engineer
Motivated
Storyteller
Big Time Dreamer
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MAY NOT CONTINUE
Those were the three words in a letter I received from the program faculty stuck with me for some time after. Although I wasn’t officially kicked out of the program, I completely felt like a drop out. My engineering dream that I’ve been planning since I was eight years old ended in the span of four months. I remember my parents coming into my room asking why I was crying my eyes out, only to learn about the news I just received. I had an idea that this would be a possibility closer to the end of the semester which involved many tearful days. But this day was different because on this day, I officially deemed myself a failure. I gave myself an opportunity to achieve my goal, but I squandered it so quickly. I gave myself the week to feel bad about myself and eventually told my closest friends which was probably the most embarrassed I have ever felt. A few of my other close friends in the program were also introduced to this setback, which was relieving to not feeling completely alone. But at the end of the day, it was a dream of mine to become an engineer and at the time it seemed impossible to achieve.
I thought a lot about my next steps and how I would move forward, do I give up on my dream this early in the fear of failing again or do I try again with a better understanding now of what it takes. I came to the decision that I would be doing myself a disservice if I would give up on my dream this prematurely. At that point on, I told myself that overcoming failure was going to be part of who I was, rather than something I would be ashamed of. I improved on the two courses I failed in night school to provide myself with the option to return. I soon learned that Langara College, only a ten-minute bus ride away from me offered a one-year transfer program into the University of British Columbia where I could compete to get into the civil engineering program. I leaped at this opportunity, excited to get a Second Chance and to apply the tough lessons I learned during my first year of post-secondary.
