I Almost Failed a Class, Not Because I Was Lazy—But Because I Was Working Too Much in College

No one tells you that failing in college doesn’t always look dramatic.

Sometimes it looks like showing up every day, doing everything you’re supposed to do, and still falling behind.

In this story, I’ll call myself “R.” R is a college student in New York City trying to balance classes with a job that pays just enough to keep everything from collapsing. He doesn’t skip lectures. He doesn’t party every weekend. He doesn’t ignore deadlines. And yet, one semester, he comes dangerously close to failing a class.

Not because he didn’t care—but because he cared about too many things at once.

At the beginning of the semester, R told himself he could handle it. A full course load. A part-time job that slowly became closer to full-time. Family responsibilities are layered on top like background noise you can’t turn off. He made schedules. Color-coded calendars. To-do lists that stretched longer every week.

At first, it worked.

He attended lectures during the day and worked evenings. On weekends, he caught up on assignments while everyone else rested. He told himself this was temporary. Just one tough semester. Just one more shift.

But college deadlines don’t care how tired you are.

Little by little, things started slipping. An assignment was submitted five minutes late. A quiz he didn’t prepare enough for because he came home from work exhausted. Group projects were scheduled at times he couldn’t attend without missing a shift.

There’s a moment in this story where R checks his grade online and feels his stomach drop.

He’s not failing yet—but he’s close enough to see it coming.

He refreshes the page twice, hoping the numbers will change. They don’t. He closes his laptop and sits in silence, replaying every decision that led him there. He doesn’t feel angry. He feels embarrassed. Ashamed. Like he should have known better.

That moment didn’t happen exactly like that in real life, but the fear did.

Working while studying in New York City is a different kind of pressure. Rent doesn’t pause for midterms. Bills don’t wait for finals week. Missing a shift can mean falling behind in ways that don’t show up on a transcript.

Professors say things like, “Your education should come first.”

They don’t always understand that for some students, work is part of survival. That choosing school over work isn’t always a real option—it’s a privilege.

R started waking up already tired. He drank coffee late at night and stared at screens until the words stopped making sense. His assignments weren’t bad—just unfinished. His effort wasn’t missing—just stretched too thin.

The worst part wasn’t the grades.

It was the guilt.

Guilt for thinking about quitting his job. Guilt for resenting school. Guilt for wondering if maybe college wasn’t built for people like him.

In this story, R finally does something that feels harder than working nonstop.

He asks for help.

He emails his professor, explaining more than he ever wanted to. He admits he’s struggling to keep up. He expects disappointment. Maybe judgment.

Instead, he gets a short response offering flexibility he didn’t know he was allowed to ask for.

That email doesn’t fix everything. He still works. He still studies. He still finishes the semester exhausted. But something shifts. He stops treating burnout like a personal failure and starts seeing it as a system problem—one that asks too much of students who already carry more than most.

R passes the class.

Not perfectly. Not effortlessly. But honestly.

That’s the quiet truth of college survival in New York City.

Sometimes success isn’t about excelling. It’s about enduring without giving up entirely. It’s about staying enrolled. Showing up. Asking for help before it’s too late.

This story isn’t real—but the struggle inside it is.

If you’ve ever worked while going to college, what was the hardest part to balance—time, energy, or guilt?