During the fifth week of my freshman winter quarter at Northwestern, at around roughly 12:30 pm, I found myself sobbing my eyes out in one of the over-engineered bathroom stalls of the Kellogg Global Hub.

Throughout my entire eighteen years, I have been told I was smart. The cream of the crop. A child prodigy, if you will. Yet, rather suddenly, I found myself with a failing grade in my microeconomics class. I received a bad grade on my midterm, and that was it — that’s all it took. My world was crumbling, and I was ready to reassess my entire life, who I was and how I’d been spending my time. It only took this one test to essentially send me into a spiral of self-reflection, which I’d hoped the Oprah podcasts I listened to every morning would do for me.

Welcome to the plight of the “smart kid.”

If you’ve taken any Intro to Psychology course, it’s simple: The kids who were told their whole life that they were smart, capable, untouchable — typically by their parents and influential figures within academia, such as teachers — have grown into adults who possess fixed mindsets. In textbook terms, a fixed mindset is one in which individuals believe that their abilities or intelligence are fixed traits, while an individual with a growth mindset believes that they can develop these abilities through effort.

In other words, when we encounter an obstacle, people with a fixed mindset detach, assuming any obstacle must mean a flaw somewhere within the individual, rather than presenting an opportunity to learn. Now, for a student attending a prestigious, top-10 university where even the simplest assignments require hours of preparation and then even more hours of self-recovery, this poses an issue.

“What was I doing wrong?” I asked myself as I wiped back tears in the aforementioned bathroom stall. I had “done” the work. Study groups, drop-in tutoring, Khan Academy videos. It wasn’t enough. Something wasn’t clicking.

It hit me: I wasn’t truly absorbing and interpreting the material. Instead, I was superficially “studying,” if you can call it that, hoping that at some point the super-human, child prodigy, magic brain juice I was told I had would kick in. Life simply does not work like that. Brains do not work like that.

I had to reboot. I finally realized that I simply must reprogram my mind. And so should every other college student who was told that they are the best and the brightest as a child. Welcome to Northwestern, where literally every student is the best and the brightest.

Here’s how I’ve begun to fix the issue: Recognize that good things take time, and put in that time. In hindsight, I realize that I once did possess a growth mindset, and it was this mindset that allowed me to excel academically and get into a prestigious institution. However, at some point along the way, between all the accolades and ego trips, I lost it.

Now, I must rediscover the passion for learning that I once held and was able to use to my advantage, while still being kind to myself, slowly ditching the self-loathing tendencies I used to possess.

Frankly, I’m tired of allowing this mindset to hold me back and keep my emotions captive. The world is brighter when you’re able to encounter obstacles and view them with optimism rather than fear. Northwestern is already way too dim during the winter for my mindset to make my environment any darker.

Zaria Howell is a first-year. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.