Advice

When it comes to giving advice, I am pretty darn good at it. When it comes to taking my own advice or taking advice from someone else, it’s as if I have lost all common sense.

I am taking the GRE again for the second time next week. The first time I took it was in October of 2015. I had six weeks to study and I used my time fairly wisely. I did the practice questions, practice exams, I learned some new words. ( I don’t remember what any of them are now, but I know I learned new ones for the test.) I even signed up for a online study guide course. I took it seriously, well as seriously as I could, why, because it’s important, and also because I was scared.

I didn’t want to door poorly, I mean these are subject matters that you learn in high school, I should know it right? Plus, my graduate career depends on this test that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with what I want to study and my future career goals.

Small rant: The GRE is a complete waste of time, it’s something that you 1. Shouldn’t have to take at all, or 2. Should take right after high school considering it lasts for five years and it’s everything you learned in like the 10th grade. I hate it with a passion. In fact, I hate all standardized test, because I don’t test well and it’s not really showing what you know, but what you can memorize and how well you can take a test.

Going through this process has made me feel inadequate. I feel as if I am not smart enough to get accepted. Which is partly why it has taken me so long to apply. My fear of rejection has quadrupled since I started preparing for this graduate school application. Questions flood my mind on a daily basis. “What if you don’t do well on the GRE?” “What if your GPA isn’t high enough?” “What if they don’t like your Goals Statement?” “What if you simply just don’t get in?” “What then?” “What will you do?”

Now, see if this was anyone else coming to me saying all of these things, I would just reinforce how smart they actually are. I would let them know that you graduated from a Top 20 school, you can do anything. I would tell them that as hard as it is right now, once you get in you will know that it was all worth it. I would also let them know something that one of my friends in middle school told me, “Keep saying it’s not easy and it will keep getting harder.” And then I will throw some clichés in there like, “Don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game” and “You got this, I believe in you.” Blah Blah Blah.

See, these are the things I already know about myself. These are the things that I would expect someone to say to me. But, still these are the things that are of no value when you don’t feel as if you are capable of succeeding in a world where most people are destined to fail. I don’t know. Maybe I am just overreacting, maybe I am going to take this week to study my butt off and do better than I did the first time, because now I want it more. And maybe when I submit my application I will receive an acceptance letter no questions asked.

Or maybe not.

Alex.