> I just can't memorize stuff on demand like exams expect people to.

Unless things have changed in the 30+ years since I was in college, I seem to recall exams happen after weeks of study and not "on demand". Part of learning is memorization. There's no way around that. It sounds more like you aren't cut out for the pace of high-caliber institutions which move very quickly. I have two friends with literature degrees, one from UCONN and one from Dartmouth. The Dartmouth friend had to read 4x the number of books than the UCONN friend in the same period of time for the same degree. C-students still need jobs! Just because you aren't a straight-A doesn't mean you can't still be a serviceable employee.