Lesson three — The difference between hard and wrong

Every road in this book has a stretch that is genuinely hard. Second-year engineering. The clinical years of nursing. The CA examinations. The first summer on a construction site. It is supposed to be hard; that is what makes the qualification worth something.

Students frequently mistake hard for wrong, and quit a road that suited them. Others mistake wrong for hard, and endure years of something that never fitted them at all.

Telling them apart is a skill, and here is the most reliable test:

Hard feels like a wall you are climbing. It is exhausting, but the subject itself still interests you when you are not being examined on it. You are curious about the thing beyond the exam.

Wrong feels like a room you are sitting in. You are not curious. When the examination ends you feel relief rather than interest, and you have never once wondered about the subject on your own time.

If it is hard, stay and get help — a tutor, a study group, a teacher's time. Hard passes.

If it is wrong, say so early and out loud. Changing in the first year costs one year. Changing after a degree costs several, and most people who should have changed simply do not, because by then it feels too late to admit.