The Lesson That Fought Back

Sometimes we find ourselves in difficult situations where we are unable to complete a task. It becomes even more frustrating when we see others doing it easily, but it is difficult for us. For today’s topic, the Hive Learners’ community asks us to share the hardest thing we have ever had to learn. It could be a course in school, a skill or a project. When I saw this topic, I had a lot of things in my head to discuss. Going through university, there were so many difficult things I had to learn, particularly drama presentations where you have to come out on stage and show your acting skills. Two days ago, I signed out and graduated from the university, and looking back, the past 4 four years of my life were filled with many difficult moments. Thanks to God, my parents and my own efforts, I saw through and succeeded. However, I cannot deny the fact that I came across many courses that I found difficult to grasp.

I used to think that I could handle any course, as long as I had access to the internet. All I had to do was click a few buttons and get my answers. This was my idea about my university courses until I came across the most difficult course I have ever taken. The title of the course is Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics. The title alone doesn’t seem like something interesting, does it? Well, the content wasn’t interesting either. We had three lecturers teaching the course. So, they divided the course outline into three parts, each handled by one lecturer. Now, despite the fact that 3 lecturers were taking this course, none of them took the course seriously. They didn’t come for classes, and instead gave us materials online, leaving us to read and understand on our own.

If you ask me what that course entails today, I won’t be able to say a single word. As I mentioned, our lecturers only gave us materials, so we were left to read and understand the courses ourselves. The course was so difficult for me because it was complex and bulky. The language there seemed like a foreign language. Whenever I tried to read the course materials, I couldn’t get past a page. I managed to understand a few things when I copied and pasted it on ChatGPt, asking it to simplify it. Still, the course wasn’t sticking. I also tried to reach out to some of my coursemates if they would understand it, but to my surprise, none of them understood the course. I gave up on the course until a day before the exam.

That was one of the greatest mistakes I have made in school—not reading a course until a day before the exam. My course mates and I came together to pull off an all nighter. We planned to read the whole course overnight. So we thought we could join heads together and crack the code. Although we managed to understand a few things, we finally gave up when we saw that we couldn’t continue further. Plus, it was almost time for the exam. We read from 8pm the previous day to 7am the next day—the day of the exam, of course we had breaks. None of us completed the course. We gave up, hoping that what we read would come out in the exams.

That exam was the most difficult exam I had ever written. Out of 3 questions, I was only able to answer 1 confidently. I didn’t leave the test blank. I read some parts that helped me answer the question. But I used my head, interpreted it and answered it to my best knowledge. Surprisingly, when the results came out, I did well.

Never! I had enough of that course. It gave me nightmares. After the exam, I totally forgot about Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics. I didn’t even wait to check the questions after the exam. In school, you come across interesting courses that you comprehend easily and quickly, and you also come across difficult ones that you find hard to grasp. When you finally complete them, you let out a loud sigh.

Thanks for reading.