Four Life Lessons Learned From My Biggest Failure

This is a story about something that happened a few years ago, during an amazing period of my life.
In a nutshell, this story is about how I traveled 1000 miles to follow my dream and got humiliated.
Okay, technically, the journey from Beijing to Shanghai is only 800 miles but who is going to click on a story about someone travelling a poultry 800 miles?
The rest of it is all true. I promise.
Back in 2016, I was living in Beijing and in my second year of work as a full time English teacher. I loved it in Beijing, but I knew I wouldn’t teach English forever. The previous year I had decided that pursuing a degree was the logical next step to take in my life and, harbouring a life-long dream to become a doctor, I sent in an application to nearly every medical school in South Africa (my home country). I got rejected from every single one.
I felt a bit lost. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. And then came along an opportunity.
I can’t even remember how I found it, but I came across a degree program that was run by one of Japan’s top universities. I should probably mention that I’ve decided to refrain from using the University’s actual name in this story, so let’s just call it Okabe university. If you get that reference, then thumbs up to you.
Anyway, the program sounded amazing. It was a full degree program in the sciences, specifically for foreign students. Why did it appeal to me so much? Well, first off, the university was top tier, secondly it was in JAPAN and thirdly, Japanese language modules were a compulsory part of the course.
I should explain all three of those points —
- I used to think university ranking mattered;
- I had always wanted to go to Japan and;
- I love learning languages.
At that point, my Chinese was already pretty good and the prospect of being able to learn Japanese along with getting a top degree in something that interested me was exciting.
I thought I had finally found what I was meant to do.
I contacted my family back home and told them the news. After a long discussion, my dad reluctantly admitted that he could probably, just about, sort of finance it.
I set about preparing my application. I wrote essays explaining who I was and why I wanted to study at Okabe University. Along with that, I sent in my high school transcripts, my CV and my university entrance exam results. Then I waited.
After a couple of months, I got an email from Okabe university saying that I had passed the first round of the application process and that they would like to invite me for an interview.
Amazing news!
They followed up with a second email, containing the date, time and location for the interview. It was going to be held in Shanghai — their closest office to Beijing. I was ecstatic.
The next day, I chatted to my boss and got a few days off work. Then, I booked my flight to Shanghai as well as a cheap hotel which was nearby the location for the interview. I felt so ready.
In hindsight, I was too over confident. I don’t know why but I just had this idea that this was meant to be and that all I needed to do to get a spot in the program was to show up at the interview. Boy, was I wrong.
I woke up on the morning of the interview feeling refreshed and ready to cement my spot in what I honestly believed was my dream study program. I put on my suit, combed my hair and set off for the subway. Three stops, one line-change and another two stops later, I had arrived.
I entered the building. “这是A座吗?” (Is this building A?) I asked the receptionist. “是的” (yes), he replied with a smile. I went in to the elevator and pushed the floor number.
Ding.
I got out of the elevator and walked around until I saw two, nervous looking Chinese students standing outside an office door. Ah, that must be the one. I said hi to them and proceeded to sit down.
I was cool as a cucumber. Poor kids, standing there, they were practically shaking with nerves.
About five minutes later, a Japanese lady came out of the office, smiled, and greeted us. “Ok, come with me. First, you will write the test and after that you will have your interviews.”
My cool, calm and collectedness vanished and was promptly replaced with a hot flush of panic mixed with nerves. There’s a test?
In the excitement of being granted an interview, I must have not scrolled down far enough in the email to see the part about there being a written test as well. Now I knew why those Chinese kids looked so sheepish.
I was just praying that it was more of an aptitude test to gauge our emotional intelligence rather than a test of scientific knowledge.
But when I turned over the paper it was as if my worst fears had materialized right there on the page. Who was I kidding. This was a top Japanese university, of course it was a knowledge test. Maths, physics, and biology questions, and not easy ones, either.
At that point in time I had been out of school for three years. I was teaching children in Beijing and I spent all my free time learning Chinese. Yes, I had done well in high school but there’s no way I could still remember how to solve a differential equation or the different stages of Meiosis.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It was then that I began to hate myself. Why didn’t I read the email properly? Why hadn’t I prepared for this? What the hell was I doing?
It didn’t matter anymore, though. I wrote down some half-assed answers and shamefully handed in my test paper. It was all down to the interview, now.
I wondered if the professor interviewing me would understand my situation. I wondered if he would understand the fact that I had been out of school for a few years already and maybe agree to discount my test results. I wondered if, just maybe, he would appreciate the fact that I had some actual life experience and while my test results were bound to be poor, it didn’t change the fact that I was clearly an intelligent and capable person.
I waited nervously in the test venue until, finally, the Japanese lady came to call me. It was my turn to have the interview. The Japanese lady escorted me back to the office door she had originally come out of and opened it for me. I walked in and saw not one, but four professors sitting at a table at the end of the room.
I slowly made my way to the other side of the room, where the professors were sitting, wishing a portal would spontaneously open up in front of me, sucking me in and sending me back home to my cosy apartment in Beijing.
When I finally made it across the room, I greeted the professors and sat down in the seat that had been left vacant for me.
There were two Japanese professors, and two foreign professors. One was British, this I knew due to his accent and the other I couldn’t quite place. The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that the British professor looked kind of funny, like a plump Albert Einstein — a fitting look for a science teacher.
Three out of the four professors had laptops open in front of them and for some reason this scared me.
They spoke to me with disinterest, as if they would rather be cooped up in their lab writing a research paper than talking to some overdressed South African kid who badly needed a haircut (I really did).
After a brief explanation of my situation and why I wanted to pursue a degree in Japan, the questioning took a turn for the worst. The British professor rifled through a stack of papers in front of him before finally finding what he was looking for, my test paper. As he lifted it up, I could see the other professors smirking.
They were not impressed.
Before they could say anything, I launched into a monologue about how I had been out of school for a few years already and how I was confident I could regain all the knowledge I once had through a little revision.
They didn’t care.
The professors began firing questions at me.
“If I have a sample of gas at atmospheric pressure with a volume of 50cm3, what is the new pressure if the volume is decreased to 35cm3?”
- Oh, that’s Boyle’s law… If only I could still remember what that was…
“What is the second law of thermodynamics?”
- Sorry, I really can’t remember…
“What are the differences between animal cells and plant cells?”
- Um… One has a cell wall I think…
This carried on and on.
I was so blindsided that I blanked on nearly every question. It was utterly humiliating.
I kept wondering when the onslaught would end. Were they just enjoying making me feel like an idiot?
At one point one of the professors even started asking me questions about the Western Cape (the area of South Africa that I’m from) and before I could respond he would answer his own question — as if to show off how much more he knew about my home than I did.
I was so nervous and embarrassed that the rest of the interview is just a blur. I honestly can’t remember what happened next. I think I made a joke about a time machine? And I’m pretty sure they didn’t laugh.
All I remember is leaving the interview knowing full well that I would not be offered a place in the program.
As I walked out of the building, into the street, I was hit by the icy Winter chill and all I felt was failure.
I had flown down here to Shanghai to pursue a dream and in a couple of hours I watched as that dream crumbled in front of me.
I took the subway back to my hotel, went up to my room and collapsed on the bed. I was beaten. Done.
But then something dawned on me — I was in Shanghai.
Since I had arrived, all that had been on my mind was the interview for Okabe University and now that it was over, I had a chance to see things a bit clearer.
“What the fuck am I doing? I’m in Shanghai for God’s sake.”
I decided to blank out what had just happened and save my self-loathing for another time. I was in Shanghai — the so called ‘city of dreams’; a city I had always wanted to visit and what was I doing? I was lying on my bed in a crappy hotel room with no windows.
So, I packed up my stuff, checked out of my hotel, googled “Best things to do in Shanghai” on my iPhone and began walking back to the subway station.
I ended up spending a magical day in Shanghai. I walked along the bund and gazed up at all the amazing buildings, drank milk tea at a cafe overlooking the river and ate some great street food.
It was a sweet ending to a bitter trip.

Let me share with you the reason that I decided to write about this experience…
In truth, I found the whole ordeal kind of traumatic. Never in my life had I felt so humiliated, so inadequate. I never really spoke to my friends about it or told anyone the full story. I wanted to shut it out and pretend it never happened.
But lately I’ve realised something.
Three really great things came from that one, crappy experience.
Firstly, I know that no matter what, I will never have a worse interview in my life (a comforting thought).
Secondly, I got to see the amazing city of Shanghai and;
thirdly, I now have a new source of motivation.
I am more motivated than ever to achieve success and prove to myself (and those stuffy, old professors) that I am capable of much more than most people could ever dream of.
It took me more than two years to see the positive side to this whole experience but now I am incredibly thankful for what happened. Not only did this experience help me to grow as a person but it also taught me four very valuable life lessons.
The first of which is the importance of preparation. Whether you’re writing a test, giving a speech, attending an interview or whatever, it’s better to be over-prepared than under-prepared.
Secondly, failure is a necessary part of life. We all fail occasionally and that’s ok. Failure is nothing more than an opportunity for learning and growth.
Thirdly, don’t let anyone belittle you or make you feel inadequate. If someone tries to, then they themselves are harbouring insecurities about their abilities, or lack thereof.
And finally, your worst enemy is often yourself. Stop getting in your own head. Push those doubts out of you mind and stop second guessing yourself. If you can go into every new situation feeling calm and confident, you will have a much higher chance of success.
You may be wondering what the end result of all this was… Well, as you can guess from the story, I did not end up studying in Japan. Instead, I moved back to my home country of South Africa and attended the University of Cape Town where I majored in Biochemistry.
During the one year I was there I achieved academic excellence by making it onto the Dean’s merit list and I was even awarded a class medal for coming top of my class in one of my subjects, beating out some 270 odd other students.
As I said, I only attended university for one year. During that year I proved to myself that even after a four year break I could still compete at an academic level, and, more importantly, I realised that university just wasn’t the path I was meant to take.
Thank you for reading my story, I hope you learned something of value… Oh and screw those stuffy old professors.
