Bad First Year

<p>Hello everybody,</p>

<p>I just finished my first semester at college, and am aghast at my GPA. From a 3.8 In high school, I have now plummeted to a 2.09 in my first semester. I got an A in a 1 hour course, a B in a three hour course, two C's in two hour courses, and a D in a four hour course. While I can see how and why I messed up so badly with that D, I can honestly say I'm unpleasantly surprised about the rest of my grades.</p>

<p>Now, what I'd like to know is, can I recover from this horrendous first semester? How long will it take me to climb back to a 3.6 at the very least, assuming straight A's? I really want to get into graduate school to do biological research, and would be crushed if this screwed up first semester prevented me from doing so.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>Were any if those grades “+” or “-” grades, because when I calculate the GPA manually, I’m not getting 2.09. </p>

<p>Assuming your 2.09 GPA is correct and there isn’t a weird way your university calculates GPA, it would only take 2 semesters of straight A’s with 15 credit hours to get a 3.45. Three semesters would get you to your goal.</p>

<p>I don’t know why this is in the grad school forum because it is really a college problem that you need to get a handle on and not be ‘surprised’ by grades. Why would you perform like this and then suddenly assume straight A’s for the rest of your career is a mystery and something to look at. I can help but this is could be disastrous to hold yourself to that standard. One suggestion to to take 4 courses your next semester so you can get a better handle on how much time you need to spend to get better grades.</p>

<p>I’m sorry, I posted in this forum because I saw a thread dealing with the same topic a few years back was posted in this forum as well, so I assumed this was the right place. </p>

<p>I say I’m surprised because I was getting consistently high marks on exams and assignments in those classes throughout the semester, and studied vigorously for the finals.</p>

<p>The grades are reported simply as A-F, without + or -. However, a grade is counted the same amount of times as the number of times one has that class each week. So for example, for my class in which I got a D, it meets four times a week, resulting in the grade being factored in four times.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s normal, but you’ve skipped a step. A class usually meets for the number of hours equal to the number of hours/credits that the course is worth.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>When I calculated the grade manually, I got a 2.083. I assume the 2.09 was some rounding thing or whatever, but it’s close enough that it wouldn’t make a significant difference. What did you get when you calculated it?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Did you look at the final exam to see why you did so poorly on it? If you were consistently getting A’s or high B’s on the exams, it would be very unusual for you to do so poorly on the final that it would bring your grade to a D. That’s definitely something to look into, so that you don’t repeat that mistake.</p>

<p>I second some of the opinions above that you should really consider why you got the grades that you did and why you were so surprised that you didn’t get the grades you thought you would. That may suggest a discord between the professor’s expectations and your own understanding. Was there perhaps other components of the grade (participation, homework assignments) that you didn’t know existed and that’s why your grades were pulled down?</p>

<p>I wouldn’t worry too much about whether or not you can pull up your GPA. Just figure out where you went wrong, and do your best to get better grades in the future. If you want to get into grad school, then make sure you get a lot of significant research experience because that’ll make your GPA (as long as it’s above a 3.0) much less of a factor.</p>