Reflecting on my time in my Honda Civic after I failed an exam
By ILEANA MONSERRAT MERAZ- immeraz@ucdavis.edu
Don’t be alarmed. I’m okay, I swear. However, I can’t say the same about me back in 2021 on a cold December day in my Honda Civic in a community college parking lot.
Imagine tears, snot and a messed-up first-year just sobbing in her car with a crying face worse than Kim Kardashian’s. Yeah, scary.
Now, obviously I wasn’t just crying because I randomly felt like it. I had just failed my third midterm in a row for a required calculus class I was taking at my old community college.
For some context, before I became a political science major and came to UC Davis, I was a community college astrophysics major. Dreaming to go to UC Berkeley and becoming the next Nobel Prize winner. The requirements were math heavy, the workload was intense and repetitive. Wake up. Math. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
So, when I knew that I had just bombed my third midterm of the quarter, I thought life was over. How on earth could I be a good astrophysicist without being able to do basic calculus? How would I ever transfer to my dream university without being able to pass every math class with flying colors? Did I just fail my first class? Oh my gosh, what is Mom going to say?!
My crashout reached its peak when I ran from my classroom where I had just taken the exam to my rusty dusty (but reliable) 2012 Honda Civic. I opened the door, jumped into the backseat, laid down and just cried. But not like one of those cries that you get randomly when you get emotional but a real, can’t-catch-my-breath, suffocating cry.
An exam had just changed my entire future. What the hell was I going to do now?
Before I tell you the rest, let me begin with this. For those of you who don’t know, I am from Silicon Valley, home of tech, innovation and, basically, a bunch of STEM kids. Yes, I was one as well.
I had grown up going to science camps at Stanford University and spent time teaching myself how to code during classes in the summer. I was the one and only awkward kid in the corner with a bad haircut and a desire to learn everything and anything about science. I really had a passion for it.
As I grew up and went to high school, I began taking other classes like Advanced Placement Chemistry and Advanced Biology. Both allowed me to want to continue my education in STEM even further. I was academically gifted and had many teachers tell me I was smart and could go far with science. However, little did I know that I had just begun to burn out.
When one burns out, academic pressure feels slightly different. It feels like you are constantly making a life or death decision, and if you make the wrong choice, then you would be doomed forever. Hence, my car crashout; where the pressure finally made me crack.
My face was puffy, and my eyes looked like I had just put a ton of red paint on them. It was bad.
I had given close to six years of my life eating, living and breathing science, and finally, with one exam, I felt it all just go away just like that. My future was undetermined, and I didn’t know what to do.
I continued to sit in my Civic for close to half an hour just contemplating all the wrong ways my life could go; how I had just disappointed myself, my parents and probably ruined my chances at ever transferring.
The more I reflect on my crashout, the more I solidify my beliefs that black-and-white thinking was my downfall in this moment. Never did I ever consider retrying the class or even listening to myself as to if astrophysics was really what I wanted to do or if it was just the thing that was expected of me given my track record. The gray area never seemed to exist.
I wish I could go back in time to my first-year self in that Civic and comfort her, letting her know everything was going to be okay. That she would end up passing that class (thank you curve!) and that her real path was just a few quarters away. She wouldn’t have believed me of course (again, she was just in her own black-and-white world), but at least I could have planted the seed in her head to not think in extremes and that she still had three and a half beautiful years ahead of her.
I would have told her that listening to herself and her very secret love for the humanities was the way to go and to not quiet that voice that told her that was where she needed to be. Impressing others shouldn’t be the goal when it comes to choosing your path and now I extend this message to you, loyal Aggie reader, that believing in the gray area may just be the way to go.
I finally believed in the gray area my fall quarter of my second year of college and made the change to the humanities. With that being said, I applied for transfer that same quarter and visited what ended up being my dream school all along, UC Davis. I thrived in my new major and found a passion for school, life and the keeping of my peace. The pressure was lifted, and I could finally become who I was meant to be.
I am proud to say that I will be graduating from this university this spring with my bachelors degree in political science and a minor in economics at the Golden 1 Center. I’ll be walking the stage at the Saturday graduation and will be driving myself in that same Honda Civic I crashed out in. What was once the vessel of uncertainty and dread will become a chariot of hope for the future and the home of a full-circle moment I will never forget. Sometimes one just needs to cry in their Civic, so go do it!
