The Joys in Resitting an Exam

Let’s face it, everyone loves to be given a second chance. Really, second chance is that indispensable portion of our daily lives that if there were not to be second chances, life would be meaningless; religion would be an upsurd practice, there’ll be no need for doctors to undertake surgeries nor for there to be a psychiatric hospital.

Indeed, true happiness would never exist because a life without a second chance will require the human race to be just as perfect, which is impossible.

Unfortunately, not all second chances are heartily welcomed.  When you have to resit a paper you did not pass for the past semester, the thought of it alone sends shivers down your spine. You begin to have thoughts such as, "I am the only one amongst my friends to resit. What will happen to my GPA, what if this person I revere most, sees me? Why me? Why should I be the one to re-write?  Am I a failure?" All sort of emotional junk begin to ravel within your brain.  Actually, no one is immune to such thinking.

Whether we like it or not, we are puppets of our emotions:  We make complex decisions and assertions by consulting our feelings, instead of our thoughts. Against our best intentions, we substitute the question, “What do I think about this?” with “How do I feel about this?”

Fact, this thought when considered logically, can present us with some fascinating insights that we cannot imagine in our emotional state.

Let’s consider the new resit policy in UHAS.  After getting an F or an E for a paper, you will be required to write once more. However, unlike previous years, you shall be given whatever grade you had in the re-sit. Meaning, with just a dent of hard work you now have the chance to surpass a bunch of your mates. When you get 80% in a re-sit, you get an A.

Indeed, you shall still have the E or F appearing on your transcript, but who cares? Which manager would prefer a student with a grade C over the one who initially had F but later wrote and had B?  Is that not what every manager requires? Tenacity, resilience, and perseverance, Good news! By striving to do well in a resit paper, you are almost spontaneously associated with these wonderful attributes. Just for free.

Success stories. Stunning success stories have one thing in common: past failures and setbacks. To be given the chance to re-write a paper is to hand over to you a blank check. You have the power in your hands, to write a trilling piece of story. Actually, who would like to hear such a boring story as “I passed all my papers at once during my time in UNI” than the thriller that goes, “at UNI, I trailed some of my papers, and yet, with hard work, I graduated successfully. Now I'm happily working”?

In conclusion; I will never advice someone to deliberately trail and re-write a paper. Actually, there is no reasonable justification for you to intentionally pay for the same thing twice, regardless of your wealth.

However, see yourself as favored if you are within the re-sit cohort. See yourself as the one taking a spot kick in the dying embers of a game. If you score, your team wins, but more fascinating, you get a plus one goal that will edge you closer to the golden boot than ever before.  It hurts, considering the time expenditure, and yet triumph will ensure that it will hurt so good!

By: Stevenson Ohene-Gyan Ankomah