[penprogg]

The problem with this is that society does not accept failure. Fail a few times in college and your GPA is irreparably damaged, you have to spend extra time (and money, oh god the money) retaking courses you "should" have passed on the first go.

I find myself gaining the most from courses where the professor destroys me. I spend all semester struggling with certain concepts and then at some point towards the end, once I've been exposed to the bigger picture, everything falls together and all the previous material I didn't understand now makes sense. The problem is that I've already been evaluated for the material. If I get a D in a course and retake it and get an A should I still have that D on that record, even though I arguably know the material better than someone who got a B on their first go?

While failure is probably the best way to learn, society conditions people to avoid failure like the plague.