If you were to gather the most significant numbers of my life, you would find the predictable integers of age and anniversary, but you would also find one digit that hangs there like a small, awkward star: Five. 

Five is the number of major subjects I flunked during my time as an undergraduate student. Five times I stared at a transcript where a “5.0” — the highest mark of failure in the university  — sat on the page like a solemn judgment. But the most absurd digit in that collection of academic catastrophes belonged to a subject you can’t exactly study for: Physical Education. 

Who fails PE? I did. I, the future college instructor, once earned the university’s mark of defeat for the simple act of trying to throw a volleyball or attend a morning social dance class. Failure, it seemed, was not a strange thing to me; it was simply the floor I knew how to stand on.

My student years were a masterclass in feeling out of place. While my friends chased 1.0s and compiled transcripts that shone like polished brass — the necessary currency for Latin honors — I became intimately familiar with the registrar’s office, feeling the heat rise on the back of my neck every time I had to process another re-enrollment slip for summer classes. 

I was a professional at failing, and the experience taught me a deep, unacademic humility. It taught me that sometimes, the hardest parts of life aren’t the complex theories or the impenetrable formulas, but the simple, brute force of showing up and being told, “No, not good enough.”

This history is why I stand where I am now, at the front of a lecture hall, gazing at 45 nervous faces. Sometimes I see the intensity of the future 1.0 student, the one who meticulously checks every requirement box. 

But mostly, I see the students who remind me of the younger, flustered version of myself: the ones whose eyes drift to the clock, the ones who seem to understand the lecture but fail to translate that understanding into the rigid language of the exam, the ones who are, quite frankly, terrified of the 5.0.

A lot of times, I ask myself, why do I do this? Why did I channel my efforts back into the academy — this institution that once rejected me so loudly and so often — when I could have pivoted toward things that paid better, offered more stability or required fewer sleepless nights dedicated to grading papers? 

The answer, I realize now, is braided tightly with that core of failure. I don’t teach because I finally conquered the 1.0. I teach because I finally understood that 1.0 is overrated.

I had to fail repeatedly to discover the purpose that transcends a grade point average. That purpose wasn’t about mastering a subject; it was about mastering persistence. It wasn’t about the what but the why. 

When I finally grasped the profound personal reason I aspired to teach, suddenly, those past failures became less like anchors and more like deep, solid roots. I realized my presence in the classroom was less about imparting knowledge and more about serving as a witness: to the profound disconnect between a student’s inner brilliance and their outer metric.

I now look across my classroom and see potential not as a number, but as a specific kind of light. The students who are currently getting a 3.0 (University of Santo Tomas’ passing mark) might be the same students who spend their late nights thinking about an advocacy project, a solution that can champion corporations, or creating a piece of art that will genuinely change the conversation. Their voices are bright, but they have not yet learned how to speak the language of the transcript. My mission, then, is to be the scaffolding around that voice, to show them that their true worth is non-quantifiable.

I cannot give them a 1.0 if they haven’t earned it, but I can give them something far more valuable: permission to fail and then try again. I can tell them my embarrassing story about flunking five majors and PE — and watch as the tension in their shoulders eases. They see the instructor, the person holding the pen and the power, is also the same person who spent half a semester hiding from the net. It is a quiet, radical transfer of faith.

The world out there — the corporations, businesses, the movements — doesn’t run purely on 1.0s. It runs on the messy, resilient energy of people who have faced obstacles and figured out a new route. The future needs thinkers who have failed and learned humility, who understand the ground truth of struggle. It needs the person who knows that a project that takes five tries is usually the one worth finishing.

So, if you are a student right now staring at a disappointing grade, feeling that familiar, sickening knot of panic, please hear this from the instructor whose past is littered with 5.0s: You are not defined by that number. 

Your potential is not measurable by a final exam. That bright inner voice, the one whispering the big ideas that will champion communities and change the market, is far more important than any grade on a curve. My classroom, time, my entire professional purpose, are dedicated to being present at the birth of your idea. Find your purpose, cling to it, and work tirelessly toward that goal.

And when you do, believe me: the light of your achievement will outshine every single 1.0 you ever lost. I will be here, watching, ready to cheer for the students who learned how to win because they first learned how to fail. 

_________

Ivan Jeff C. Soberano is an engineer, educator and entrepreneur. He writes about growth, grit and the moments that shape us. This is his latest piece for DAILY TRIBUNE. Comments and suggestions are welcome at icsoberano@ust.edu.ph.