It was the fall of 2010. My first semester at the University of Michigan. I was pre-med and beyond determined to achieve a fruitful career as a physician. My first undergraduate exam ever was none other than introductory chemistry, one of many so-called “weeder classes” on the journey to medical school.

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I studied day and night, night and day, in nervous preparation for the anguish of college-level science exams — compounded because your grade is determined only by your performance on a few tests.

I was confident. But a week or so later the scores came out. 45 percent.

Yes, you read correctly, 45 percent.

More than seven years later, I’ve taken countless exams and that’s the only score I vividly remember. Failure didn’t even begin to describe how I felt about my performance. I felt incompetent.

We all have mishaps and I’ve scored poorly on past tests, but I never failed anything that badly, especially something that I put considerable time and effort into. I was distraught — not necessarily at the score itself, but what it might imply. It was as if that exam was the fork in the road, and the score was supposed to be a sign for me to take the path away from medicine and toward a plan B that I didn’t have.

I questioned my ability to endure the “pre-med life,” and thus my potential at achieving my lifelong goal of becoming a doctor. If I couldn’t get through introductory chemistry, how on earth could I make it through the rest of the science classes?

Something such as failing one general chemistry exam seems so minuscule, doesn’t it? It was just one exam. I was probably overreacting, right? Wrong. A story such as mine is not uncommon.