Hi Hive Student,
It's Abeegail, welcome to my blog. Do you know how hard it is to deal with the fact that your identity and everything you've been is crumbling right beneath your feet. You are at lost, wondering way you got it wrong.
Well we have almost concluded our first semester exam, and the harsh truth I was running from took me right before my eyes and left me broken for days. I was the smart kid in my secondary school (high school), the straight A student. I understood things quickly, my results made sense, teachers noticed, people used that word around me so often that it started to feel like an Identity. I was smart.
It wasn’t just a compliment anymore, it became an Identity, something you have to say when describing me, and I'm not tooting my own horn because everyone knew. So when I got into university, I didn’t think much would change. Maybe things would get harder, sure, but I still assumed I would figure it out. That’s what “smart people” do, right? They adapt. But it was far from it.
Because uni is a different system. It doesn’t care what you were known for being smart before you got there. It doesn’t adjust itself to your strengths. It just overwhelms you and Suddenly, the things that used to come easily don’t feel easy anymore. You read something once and don’t fully get it. You attend a lecture and leave more confused than when you walked in. You study and still feel unsure. You read and read and still feel like you are empty. And that’s a very unfamiliar feeling when your whole life, you’ve been “the smart one.”
Nothing, I mean nothing prepares you for this shift. No one tells you that intelligence in high school and survival in university are not the same thing. That what worked before, like last-minute studying, relying on natural understanding might quietly stop working. And when it does, it’s not just your grades that take a hit. It’s your confidence. Because it's now personal, it no longer “this course is hard.", It's "maybe I’m not as smart as I thought.”
I remember reading so hard for a test, just to get fifteen out of thirty, now for a average student this is good but for me, "the smart kid", I felt irritated because I'm smart I'm supposed to do well above average. This meant I was not special, like I'm like every other student, like I lost my identity, my sense of self.
Even if I have left lecture halls more confused than when I came in, I've come to understand that in that confusion is where one look for clarity and in clarity do we find answers and that the smart student is not always the one who can understand fast and give answers fast but it's even those that are able to admit that they not smart and is willing to learn. The wise man was once a fool but the only difference is that he's not afraid to admit he doesn't know and is ready to learn.
It's Still Abeegail
"The Smart Kid"
Thank you for Reading
The images are mine