How should I cheer up my friend?

Rather than actually try to cheer her up or give her the confidence to continue and all that blarney, you might ask her some probing questions about her real interests. I can hardly imagine a “poor student” becoming successful in the field of editing. “Publishing” isn’t “editing” in my mind. I liken those to “Sales & Marketing” vs. “Engineering”. (I’m not making a pejorative comparison! Sales and marketing are valid and necessary fields of endeavor, but they aren’t normally as technical and precise as engineering.)

“Editing” is a field of technical precision, I think (real editors feel free to correct me), and cries out for someone who has been – and enjoyed being – “a good student”.

Encourage her about her new course of action, @Nullo, and explain how some things just aren’t meant to be. Everything happens for a reason and her new course of action will develop into something wonderful in her life if she approaches it with a positive attitude. This is a whole new opportunity for her to start fresh with a lesson about why she had a series of failures in her prior endeavors. I say, a few good hugs and some words of encouragement over a nice lunch and many follow-up visits and phone calls may help set her back on course.

Sorry to hear it :( Agree w/ @bkcunningham. And also, just because you aren’t a good student today doesn’t mean you wouldn’t make a great editor at some future point in your life. I think there are so many different reasons why a person might not do well in school that we can’t possibly guess at the details here. If she had a scholarship big enough that it is the difference between attending and not, probably the situation is more complicated than ‘she’s just not smart enough’. If that is really what she wants to do, she will find a way to make it happen. I think it’s great that she’s forward looking, but it might also be worth thinking about how and why this happened.

First of all, don’t approach it as “cheering her up”. That’s focusing on what went wrong rather than moving on as she seems to be doing. Instead, offer to listen to her, and ask her how you can support her efforts. It sounds like she is making the effort to re-plan her future, ask about that.

Thanks all!

She can still be that editor. Lots of free lancers out there doing that, and I’m sure some of them (after finishing their degrees on line) get jobs at publishing houses. But I don’t think that’s necessary. If she’s really good at it, and word gets around, she can make a living. One editor I’ve seen on line offers to edit 500 words for free and then offers her services for sale.

Hey, I’ve got a book done. Does she want to get her feet wet?

Tell her to suck it up and tough it out and try her hand (brain) at something else she likes. Have her try fastweb (http://www.fastweb.com/) it really does work great for students looking for funding for college.