Confusion and Failure, my two Frenemies.

" Hey Andres, since you got into MIT and all, can you fix my computer? Can you graph this complex polynomial in your head and tell me the average value? Can you hack into Pandora and get rid of the Pandora fish McBites commercial? Can you bring my bunny back to life? "

Okay so maybe I was exaggerating in the quote above, however, there has been a serious difference since my acceptance to MIT ( Which by the way I am still in shock of, maybe I will get over it when I graduate in four years ). One major difference I have seen is that people believe that I know the answer to everything, which is farrrrrrrrrrrrr from true. Like light years far. Like the distance between you and your remote when laying on the sofa far. Sure, I have worked hard and obtained great grades, however, I have had far more failures and moments of confusion than moments of success. The other day I was contemplating this, and I had flashbacks to MITES 2012. *Set the little flashback cloud*


I was in my dorm room at Simmons working on my electromagnetism and electricity physics p-set. This was early in the MITES program when I thought I could complete a p-set by myself. I looked at the intimidating paper and began to work. And I worked. And I worked. And I failed. Two hours had past and still no progress at all. I went down to the hallway and saw a group of fellow MITES students working on the same p-set and sat down and conversed with them. After working a couple of minutes we had solved the problem I had spent two hours trying to do myself.

Another MITES example, it was during the last day of engineering design. The countdown began and every team was racing to finish their robots for the competition. I was in charge of the hammer mechanism that was meant to smash down on a high striker in order to gain points. The design was sketched out with dimensions and it was time to go to the workshop and cut out the parts. I went to the drill press and drilled a hole in the shaft of the hammer. Oh did I mention I drilled the hole in the wrong side of the hammer shaft? So instead of smashing with the hammer head, the hammer would smash with its side. Brilliance alert here.

One more recent example, I was in my AP chemistry class and decided that my pencil was dull. Went to sharpen said pencil. Failed completely. I didn't pay attention to the side I was sharpening so I ended up putting the eraser side in the sharpener. Again, let me say, I fail a lot.

What is the point of me ridiculing my blunders? I want to say that failure and confusion is an essential part of life. Don't be scared to not know something or to be confused. It happens to everyone, and more importantly failure and confusion are essential to success. I have learned far more from my failures and moments of confusion than from my moments of success. Trust me, I definitely will remember more drilling the hole on the wrong side of the hammer shaft versus remembering the time I understood perfectly Euler's method and Separable Differential Equations. In MITES I failed so much, but I stuck with it. I would learn from my failures and moments of confusion and continue on.

I ended up acing my MITES finals.

So no, I am no super human that knows everything. I am just someone who is constantly confused and who constantly fails but decides to constantly keep at it and learn from these moments of failure. Intelligence is not measured on how much one knows, but on how much one is willing to learn.