Hello, everyone. 🙂

My name’s Innah and I’m 21 years old. I’m an undergraduate fourth year student taking up architecture, and right now, I’m really struggling… We have a mandatory thesis class, and long story short, I’m failing at the moment. In my three and a half years in this school, I’ve never failed a class or even have grades that are close to failing. I feel very disappointed with myself and this over-looming dark cloud has been following me everywhere… I feel like crying all the time.

I talked to one of my thesis professors yesterday morning, and he explained to me all the reasons why I got the certain mark for the midterm. I completely understood and accepted his criticisms, but the things he said only made me think less of myself. He was being realistic and honest, but there seemed to be an underlying tone from him that said, “How did you even get here?” He thinks that I can’t draw and I don’t have a sense of a building structure, which are both utterly untrue. I survived my first two years of university drawing everything by hand – especially in the digital age now – and having some of my projects complimented by other students. I have enough common sense to know of how a building will be able to stand, and what materials would be needed. I do agree that my midterm presentation wasn’t that good and didn’t show much of what I intended to show, but he threw in the words “terrible” and “inadequate,” words that when added together equated to “not good enough.” He said those words more than once, as if the dagger in my self-esteem wasn’t deep enough. He even thinks that I’m not creative enough. I only have two options to go about this problem: 1.) withdraw from thesis class and take it the next school year instead 2.) stay in the class and drastically improve the quality of my work by December in order to pull up my mark to just a passing grade. My professor respected my initial decision of staying the class, but he thinks that I have a 50-50 chance of getting through to next semester (then saying that he thinks he’s right), which would then jeopardize my school record. I sat there wanting so badly to cry, and trying to juggle all the constructive, but harsh things that he was saying to me. I felt so upset and embarrassed at myself that I couldn’t even bare sitting there any longer.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that because I have low self-confidence, it greatly affects my work performance. I know that I’m not the most exceptional student in my program and it’s something that I’ve been constantly dealing with… I keep thinking that I’m not good enough and I keep comparing myself to others. I’ve decided that I want to withdraw from the class, so that I can take thesis the next school year instead, while expanding my skills and learning new skills. Even with my decision, I still feel upset with myself. I let my anxiety overpower me, thinking that I’m not good enough for myself or for anyone or for anything. The final straw with my professor telling me those critical explanations made me reach my tipping point. I don’t even know where the boundary line is between constructive criticism or making someone feel bad about himself/herself, especially in an art and design school. Being disappointed with myself is just as painful as going through a heartbreak, in my opinion.

I apologize for my messy story. I’m trying to let out my emotions and I hope that some of you will understand what it is that I’m truly getting at. I would love it if someone shared a similar situation with mine just so I can get more insights on this roller-coaster ride.

Best,
infralugel