LearnStorm Growth Mindset: Khan Academy's economics content creator on learning strategies

My name is Melanie Fox. I create the AP Macroeconomics and AP Microeconomics content for Khan Academy.

Well, if you don't develop that mindset and you say, "I can't overcome this," this barrier, you've just made that barrier permanent for yourself.

For me, because I loved economics so much, it was just a way of finding a way around those barriers. Whether that was taking fewer classes to give myself more time to concentrate in the areas that I struggled with, taking classes in the summer where I could focus on just one class at a time, that helped me a lot to get past those barriers.

The day I walked out of my Calculus One final exam and I knew that I had aced it— I don't think I had aced a math class since fifth grade. That was just euphoric. I can even remember the price of gasoline when I walked out of the building after that exam because it was just such a vivid memory of, "I did it! I was finally able to overcome this."

It's okay to struggle. It's probably better to struggle than to not struggle because if you can get through things very, very easily, when you hit that first barrier, you don't know what to do. It's good to have the experience to hit a barrier and find a way to push back.