<p>I just finished my Freshmen year at UCLA and I am severly conflicted in my personal academic growth here at UCLA so far. To start off, I am a Biochemistry major and have an extreme fondness for the sciences. However, I am not sure if my grades necessarily reflect that. From Fall to Spring Quarter, I have taken Chem 20A, 20B, 20L, LS2, and Physics 6A, but to my dismay, I always get a B+. </p>
<p>Now, I wouldn't necessarily complain, but I feel that I have been studying effectively and utilizing different approaches to my study habits to no avail. From starting midterm studying up to a week earlier, using a recorder for lecture, taking effective notes, or clarifying certain details, I never seem to do ENOUGH to get myself into the A range for these science classes. Am I just not doing something right? Does anyone have any advice to give me for a science lover who can't seem to show it with his grades? I am just really at a loss here and would appreciate any type of advice or encouragement you can give. </p>
<p>First of all, recording lecture probably isn’t a great idea. Maybe you’re using it in some other way, but listening to a lecture over again doesn’t seem very efficient.</p>
<p>The one thing you never mentioned is how you actually study. Do you reread your notes? Do you use flashcards? Do you evaluate what you do and don’t know in some way?</p>
<p>Well, I basically use the recorded lectures in lots of lecture with memorize heavy material like LS2. It’s basically to help me identify parts of a lecture that I might have missed, but think is vital to the material. </p>
<p>As for a lot of my other classes, I have a different approach. For calculation heavy classes, like physics I practice with lots of lecture problems, homework problems, and book problems. As for Chemistry problems, I tend to read the book or look over the teacher’s coure-reader to help me memorize the material. From there, I generally review everyday, but I never really used flashcards. I am just not sure as to what else I can do really. </p>
<p>Also, if you are a South Campus major, does what I have for my GPA so far seem pretty dismal and bad if I want to go to graduate school or med school?</p>
<p>The obvious problem here is that you are stuffing your schedule with high difficulty/workload classes. Lighten the science load a bit. Why would you take Chem 20A, 20B, 20L, LS2, and Physics 6A all in one year? There’s really no hurry unless you are an engineering major (in which case you already knew what you were getting yourself into). It doesn’t matter if you’re passionate about the sciences, it’s about how much you can handle. The LS series should be taken by themselves (do not take another science class with it in the same quarter).</p>
<p>All College Students generally take those amounts of science classes per year. Each quarter a different amount of science classes are bunched together in a ten week period, so it is necessarily like they are all bunched together for studying at the same time. In a lot of ways, it was very doable. I am just not sure how I keep screwing up my midterms or final because of either dumb mistakes or even ineffective study habits. </p>
<p>Right now, I just really want to know if there is any suggestions to improve myself. Also, if my GPA is ok for ending my freshman year.</p>
<p>I’m an engineer, and not a life sciences major, so I’ll try to give a more general answer.</p>
<p>Do you see a pattern in the types of mistakes you’re making? Do you feel time pressure? Are your errors of the careless kind? The best way to get better is to get to the root of the problem and try to address it directly. Easier said than done, obviously.</p>
<p>In terms of preparation, your techniques seem very complete. The only one of those classes I’ve taken is 20A, and I guess you could count 1A as close enough to 6A, and the biggest things for those classes were just to have an idea of what to study. Doing problems is usually a the best way to go in a lot of these classes, but more important is maybe knowing some tricks so that you can do things faster and more consistently.</p>
<p>The one concrete example I can think of (if I can use an example from 1B/6B) is being able to do something like calculate electric fields in both direct vector and angle forms. Many students only feel comfortable with one approach or the other, even though some problems are much easier with the “right” technique. Usually it’s little things like that which can help people do better than others.</p>
<p>As for GPA, you need to start getting A’s in the near future to be competitive for graduate/medical schools. Having below a 3.5 in your areas of interest doesn’t look that great for any major.</p>
<p>Here’s what I don’t get: If the objective is to maintain the highest GPA possible for grad school and med school, why would it be logical to take more than 3 classes per quarter (one science class per quarter) when you know that your chances of maintaining that GPA are lowered by an additional class? You can definitely complete all of your requirements in 4 years, as a science major (non-engineering) with 3 classes (12 units) per quarter and 1 summer class per year, while still staying on track for the MCAT. I don’t think the issue is that you’re not studying well enough, I think you’re cramming too many classes into your schedule instead of taking your time. Although, there might be some times when you’ll be forced to take 2 science classes, but you can plan it out so that you’ll get the more manageable science classes together (i.e not 20 series with LS2 in the same quarter…). This is just IMHO.</p>
<p>Unless you get kicked out for failing to keep up with ECP requirements.</p>
<p>Never mind the fact that many science majors have 30+ required classes and obviously can’t be finished in 4 years if you’re taking only 10 classes a year.</p>
<p>^ THANK YOU for finally shedding some light on this. I was getting really confused (frustrated…) by people complaining about low grades when they were taking more than 3 high difficulty classes per quarter. On that note, F*** this school. This is complete BS. How dare they force me into taking more classes so that they can move us down the university lane like a bunch of sweat-shop workers to open space for others. Just another reason to hate on UCLA.</p>
<p>btw, I previously meant to include that you still have to take 4 classes in some quarters but that those could be less difficult classes (mostly non-science)</p>
<p>overachiever92 clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. It is soooo easy to criticize people when you aren’t in the their situation. According to your profile you haven’t even entered UCLA and you are already talking **** about the school? Why don’t you refrain from commenting on current students issues until you have walked through their shoes.</p>
<p>First of all, I wasn’t criticizing anyone. Second of all, you have no clue how much experience I’ve had at UCLA. I’ve been working there for two years now, and I already understand the BS some science students have to go through with their professors and counselors when they’ve gone in way over their head. However, you do have a point, and I will stop this whole “F UCLA and take less classes” rant until I actually go to the school.</p>
<p>“The obvious problem here is that you are stuffing your schedule with high difficulty/workload classes. Lighten the science load a bit. Why would you take Chem 20A, 20B, 20L, LS2, and Physics 6A all in one year? There’s really no hurry unless you are an engineering major (in which case you already knew what you were getting yourself into). It doesn’t matter if you’re passionate about the sciences, it’s about how much you can handle. The LS series should be taken by themselves (do not take another science class with it in the same quarter).”</p>
<p>You seriously have no idea what you’re talking about. And your supposed “2 years of experience working at UCLA” means nothing, when clearly, everything that you’re posting on this site contradicts what current UCLA students are stating.</p>
<p>^ What is it I am not understanding clearly exactly? Granted I never looked into the ECP requirements (one of my random friends told me it was 12 units, sorry about that), but I don’t think it’s that much of an oddity to say that 2 high difficulty science pre-reqs per quarter is just asking for a lowering of your GPA (unless you know that you can handle it).</p>
<p>If you think taking two lower division science classes in one quarter is unreasonable then you have no business studying science in grad school. The idea of a doctor that thinks that workload is like sweatshop labor is rather frightening.</p>
<p>2 lower division science classes plus another class should be the minimum for any science major, especially if you’re not heavily involved in clubs or other activities. I know of people who took that amount of classes and did around 25 to 35 hours of research a week plus a few hours of weekly off-campus community service and did very well in all of them. In that case, the large number of hours devoted to extracurricular activities had to be accounted for with a less stressful class schedule… think about it, that’s 30+ hours you could use to study for another one or two classes.</p>
<p>It’s all a balancing act, really, and you kind of figure out what works best for you as you go along.</p>
<p>For OP’s original question, I found that keeping my stress levels low really helped with my studying and performance in classes. This might be a recipe for disaster for some people, but I found that watching my favorite TV programs during breaks or listening to radio programs while studying helped to keep my mood up. A year ago when I still wasn’t really used to college classes I would have totally rejected this mode of studying… but it’s really worked for me so far. Without radio programs online I would have imploded from all the panic and stress and gotten bad grades in all my classes. A happy student is a potentially good student, no?</p>
<p>Ok, how about this: You guys can keep planning out your schedules in whatever way you see fit, but based on the way I’ve already planned out my schedule (with some additional space for some interesting non-science classes), the fact that you see 2 lower division science classes per quarter as mandatory is out-right ignorant. Stop playing the “I’m a UCLA student, you’re not” card and look into this, instead of being so bloody stubborn. And by the way ThisCouldBeHeavn, you took my bad analogy way out of context. I meant to say that the idea that UCLA thinks it’s ok to force us into more classes than the standard 12 units so they can create more space for others is kind of degrading. If some students want to take summer classes instead, they should be allowed to do so.</p>
<p>Stop recording lectures. You can use your time more effectively; I can guarantee you that the other top students, the ones getting A’s, are not recording lectures. And even if they’re letting you do it now, pretty soon you’ll be taking classes where the profs aren’t going to allow it. </p>
<p>Are you going thru the material ahead of class? Ideally the lectures amplify and explain material you’ve already read in the text and handouts, they aren’t the first time you’ve ever heard it.</p>
<p>Good luck to you overachiever92 because with one science class a quarter you will end up here for 4+ years. Sometimes you might take one difficult class and you may even screw that up. Sometimes you’ll think you studied the material extremely thoroughly and then a curve ball will be thrown at you where you get a question you weren’t expecting or thought that it wasn’t “test worthy” material. You have to understand that with science courses you are competing with your classmates for the limited As available, so even if the course is easy you may even make lousy mistakes that you were unaware of at the time thus not getting that A you were hoping for. Also a lot of the weeder classes are pre-reqs to the upper divs you’ll need to take so ideally plowing through them will allow you to enjoy your actually major core courses.</p>