Hi y’all,
I got a bad GPA this year at UT Austin and I would like to know what the effects of this will be in the long run. I know exactly why this happened. I was a pretty sheltered kid in high school and my parents didn’t really let me have a lot of fun and I spent most of high school studying, so when I got to college, I kinda just let loose (didn’t really party, but went out with friends, spent too much time on Netflix, etc.) and ended up with a terrible GPA. My grades were the following:
First Semester:
Calculus 2: F
Microeconomics: A
UGS: B+
Foreign Policy/Government: C+
Intro to Theatre: B- (harder class than you may think)
GPA: 2.3
Second Semester:
Calculus 2: C
Financial Accounting: C or C-
MIS: B+
Astronomy: A
American Literature: A-
BA 101: A
GPA: 3.0
My grades second semester were slightly better than first semester, but I still want a GPA of at least a 3.4 before I graduate. I especially need at least a 2.75 by the end of next semester so I can apply to study abroad for Summer 2018 and my current 2.65 just won’t cut it. I’m really motivated to study longer and harder since studying abroad has been the thing I’ve most been looking forward to about college and I would like the chance to be able to do that before I have to fulfill my internship requirement the summer after my junior year.
If any of y’all have any tips on how to effectively manage time better or eliminate distractions and make studying more interesting, please post below! If anyone has been in a similar situation but managed to raise their GPA substantially by graduation enough to get into a good MBA program, please share how you’ve done that.
Something else that I was wondering about: Should I take less hours and focus on getting better grades in those classes or risk more hours to get a better overall GPA if I can do well in them?
Thank you!
Why didn’t you change Calculus 2 to Pass/fail or use Q drop/ OTE to drop it before the deadline?
Calculus 2 is the hardest one in calculus sequence.
I had a bad differential equations professor, so I changed to pass/fail instead of getting a C.
You should take about 12-15 credit hours so that you can aclimate to UT academic rigor. You should expect harder classes like chem, bio, and physics awaiting you.
Please correct me if the numbers are wrong, but I see you taking 16 hours in the first semester and 17 in the second semester, this is way too stressful in my opinion (especially when you described that you would like to have some life outside the school). Maybe you want to graduate early or just on time, and I used to be on the same boat and was taking 15 hours in the first semester like most of my friends, yet still felt too much so that I had 13-14 hours per semester afterwards. Despite of the difficult of your classes, I would say that around 14 hours is the balancing point yet still guarantees your graduation time, so try to take less classes from now on.
Also don’t worry about what already happened. Many of my friends had really bad GPAs during their first year mostly due to those intro classes (Calculus, Bio, Chem, Phy, etc) but managed to raise the grades later. A general advice would be not taking calculus with more than one science courses at the same time (if you still need multi-var calculus) and you can take some GPA-booster classes (ratemyprofessor or the university class group on Facebook usually helps you find easy professors) to gradually increase your GPA.
Good luck:)
@scientist89 I needed Calculus 2 for my degree plan which meant that I couldn’t pass/fail it. Also I was doing just fine (had about a C) in that class before the final exam and got sick that day and was sick over the weekend, so I had to take the make up with a 103 fever and it just effed me over. I don’t really need to take any more science classes after my AST 309C class this semester, considering that I’m a business major, so I’m kinda thankful for that!
@huhuhuhu I’m actually a couple of semesters ahead since I got about 30 hours of credit from high school already, so I decided to take a semester off harder classes and filled most of my schedule with blowoff classes and the other half with my required classes to raise my GPA. I’m actually still thinking about taking 18 hours this semester since 3 of my hours are KIN classes like Volleyball and some sort of KIN class where you observe team sport environments, 3 hours of EDP 304, 3 hours of children’s literature, and 3 hours of Human Sexuality (if I can get in, which may still be possible since I emailed the professor about it). My harder classes include AST 309C, which I need to take to complete 6 hours of my science credit and ACC 312 which will be a pretty difficult accounting class that I’ll need to focus most of my energy on.
I also ended up with a C+ for Accounting which raised my cumulative GPA by 0.05!
@marie122 but you should have changed it to pass/fail when you believed that you would fail it. Did you know that UT extended the deadline to May 5th?
Could final exam lower your grade from C to F?
@scientist89 I failed it in the fall semester actually and the pass/fail deadline was in November. At that point, we still had 2 exams left to make up about 50% of our final grades. I believed that if I worked hard enough I’d get a good enough grade and I actually ended up passing the third exam. However, I got sick the Friday before the exam, which I believe was December 9 and at that point there was nothing I could do about it. The last day of classes was December 5, which meant I couldn’t drop the class either. And yep, the final was worth 30% of our grade and I got like a 36 on it, which lowered it considerably. 
Taking Calculus P/F is not an option in McCombs since it isn’t an elective.
Rules for McCombs Pass/Fail:
http://catalog.utexas.edu/undergraduate/business/academic-policies-and-procedures/
Courses Taken on the Pass/Fail Basis
A business student may count toward the degree up to four one-semester courses in elective subjects outside the major taken on the pass/fail basis; only free electives (any level/subject), nonbusiness electives, and upper-division nonbusiness electives may be taken on the pass/fail basis. Business courses taken on the pass/fail basis cannot be counted toward the major, unless they are offered only on the pass/fail basis. Credit earned by examination is not counted toward the total number of courses that the student may take pass/fail.
Complete rules on registration on the pass/fail basis are given in General Information.
To answer your question: Setting aside designated time on your calendar to study, studying where you are most likely to stay focused (library, study room), attending tutoring sessions in the Sanger Learning Center, taking advantage of the free tutoring sessions at Sanger (five free hours a semester), getting enough sleep, staying healthy so you don’t get sick and miss class or tests, going to class, going to office hours.
I’d second the motion to take fewer classes next time- 15 hours or less.