Bad Quarter

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Santa Barbara
1

Hey guys, so I’m a freshman BioPsychology major at UCSB.

My first quarter I wasn’t allowed to take any science or math courses for some bullshit reason created by the Orientation program. So I took a few GEs and ended the quarter with a 3.6 (yay!)

Second quarter… not good.
I overloaded and took 19 units of pure STEM classes and one literature class compared to my 13 units fall quarter. I also got involved in newspaper and that took a lot of my time. Basically, I underestimated how fast the quarter system actually goes (1-2 midterms every week is standard I found out haha) and ended up with some shit grades.
To make things worse, the one grade that could redeem me would be English but I freaked out before getting my essay grade back and changed it to P/NP and ended up with A in it and an A in the class. I also screwed up my PSTAT final, so that sure hell didn’t help with it being such an easy class. And Calc, well thats my fault. Faaaak

F Chem 1 A
B- Chem 1 A L
C+ Calc 3A
B PSTAT 5A
P (A-) English 133 GC

Really bad quarter. I’m going to retake Chem and I’m confident I can pass with a B. Calc grade is what it is, as well as stats.

Anyways, I’m just looking for some advice or reassurance that I didn’t royally fuck up everything this early in college, I’m taking responsibility for my grades and I’m taking it as a learning experience. I was told I can retake Chem, which is fine for me, and someone told me about petitioning a grade change from P/NP to a letter grade (unlikely, but possible).

Any advice/anyone else have a bad quarter?
This totally sucks, but just gotta breathe through it.

2

There is a great book about the current research in how people learn, called “Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning”. The book is written for a lay audience. I strongly suggest reading it to make sure you are using the most effective techniques to study.

One of the things they suggest is self-testing to make sure you understand the ideas. For most math/science classes you can get Problem-Solver books such as “Chemistry Problem Solver”. These are like SAT prep books for academic subjects, organized by topic so you can match it up with what your class is studying, with thousands of worked problems.

Also make sure you are taking advantage of all campus resources, like http://clas.sa.ucsb.edu/home that offers drop-in help and also general consultations.

If you’re going to have a bad quarter, frosh year is the time to do it! It sounds like you’re taking the right lessons from this. By the time you are a senior and looking for a job or applying to grad school, nobody will care about a dip frosh year.