<p>Can someone give some advice. My daughter started in science at Barnard this fall and is pretty unhappy with her marks in chemistry so far. She was 2nd overall in her graduating class last year with a 4 in AP chemistry. She seems to be really frustrated that she is not doing better. She is doing 2nd year calculus and psychology as well. Is it normal to be completely overwhelmed the first semester?
Has anyone had similar experiences?</p>
<p>Some things to ask her
- Can she understand the professor/TA? (Sometimes freshmen courses can be taught by someone who knows the topic but either mumbles or has English as a second, third or fourth language.
- What time of day is the class? (expect low comphrehension at 8 a.m./9 a.m. or 3 p.m. – natural biological lows for college students)
- Has she been in attendance at ALL classes? (This is a tricky one to ask – the answer may be “of course” when actually there may be one or two "I overslept"s).
- Is she able to get 8 hours sleep a night?</p>
<p>We discovered that I was providing the “Executive Function” for our S2. He was doing the same high school classes that his older brother had done just a couple years previously, so I knew the drill. I was reminding him when things were due and grumping at him to go to bed. Also, he was part of a swarm of kids all taking IB classes, so they tended to move, as a group, from one class to another. He went along with the flow rather than having to think about where he needed to be next. </p>
<p>His freshman year was very, very rough. He is an incredibly smart kid. It wasn’t until an awful spring term that we got him in for really extensive testing. He is so verbal and a calm kid so we had not really considered “ADD” as a major factor – and an early try at a medication did nothing for him. </p>
<p>Armed with a precise diagnosis, ample testing stats (we’re a nerd family), a correct Rx and reading “The Now Habit” on overcoming procrastination and things seem to be much better this fall. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that you are D’s complaint sounding board. She may dump all her frustrations in your ear and then go off and have a happy pizza with friends, having left all her worries in your lap. When she says “unhappy with her marks” does that mean she is grumped by an 88 when she is accustomed to a 96? Or does that mean she’s earning a 70 by the skin of her teeth and terrified of the amount she is supposed to be covering? Those are two very different scenarios. </p>
<p>So, act like Oprah and ask lots of open ended questions, like “tell me about your last quiz” and “what are the labs and lab reports like?” – hopefully her full descriptions will start to give you insight into where things are going amiss (if they are – plenty of A students in high school are B students in college).</p>
<p>Also ask her what the workload for the course is like - how many problems, readings, etc. You need more information on just what is happening in order to give better advice.</p>
<p>Two excellent posts by Olymom and Sylvan.</p>
<p>Was Barnard a reach school for your D? If so, she may be struggling simply because she’s no longer the top of her class as she was in high school. It takes awhile to get used to being average after years of being at the top.</p>
<p>Are the sciences/math a natural strength of hers? (I have one who switched very quickly from a science major to English. Smart enough to have been able to do well in the science major, but he was always much more comfortable reading/researching/writing papers of any kind than with the massive amounts of memorization required of science courses. This became very clear to him very quickly his freshman year!) </p>
<p>And I agree that the language barrier between students and Profs who speak non-fluent English in science classes can be a real killer.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider, at some schools grades seem low, especially in the introductory science courses, until the end of the semester. My son, an engineering major, was frustrated because he was getting grades in the 70s for his 1st few Chem exams as a freshman. He felt better when older students told him that was par for the course and that they too had low grades early on but when they started to figure out what the professor wanted, how to study for the exams, how to deal with the material, and in the end when grades were curved, they ended up with As. My son also got an A in that course.</p>
<p>One thing I recommended to my son any time he felt we wasn’t doing well in a course, was to go to the professor’s office hours. Very often the professor can help the student understand something in a conversation that went over his head in lecture. And some professors can be very comforting about the student’s progress. And sometimes, other things can come out of those visits. My son got to know that Chemistry professor who then recommended my son to an engineering professor friend of his for a spot in the engineering prof’s lab. My son has been doing research ever since and loves it. </p>
<p>Good luck with your daughter!!</p>
<p>Short answer: Yes, it’s completely normal to be overwhelmed as a freshman.</p>
<p>Long answer: I see it from two perspectives, as someone who’s taught and worked with college freshmen for the last 20 years and now as a parent. The educator in me sees freshmen falling into basically two camps, 1. those who have red flags in the transcript or are in-season for fall sports and 2. those who come in with good stats and were at the top of their classes in high school, etc. The first group is often more carefully advised with an eye to the many hours athletics takes or to the weakness in thier backgrounds. They get relatively light loads, and advisors are careful about course distribution as long as the kid is not in a “program” major. The second group of students, because of AP or dual credit, may have to take courses farther up the food chain, take heavier loads, and find themselves in several of the same “kind” of courses. It is very common for them to struggle. But, when they come in for orientation, they (and their parents) won’t hear of a lighter load. Need to going on the double major-triple minor, kwim? Bottom line? I am NOT of the mind that AP anything is college equivalent. The accumluation of facts does, in no way, prepare a student to sit in a college classroom. Nothing wrong with taking AP, but don’t take the credit if that AP is the first in a sequence of required courses. If you really want to get ahead with credits, take APs that are gen eds only.</p>
<p>As a parent, I see my own D struggling with human anatomy (as opposed to inhuman anatomy?). And her stats put her at the top of the heap for accepted students. So, she’s at max hours (17), which isn’t helping. But you know, looking at the stats and everything she transferred in, she “should” be ok. Still, it’s absolutely killer to watch.</p>
<p>My D spent more of her time on freshman Chem than on any other class. It’s one of the early “weeder” classes at her school. Her salvation was in going to the Chem Lab (not an actual class, but a room within the dept that always had a few TAs or profs helping kids with questions), forming a study group so they could work through the tough (online) problems, and going to every review session offered. She had the “good” prof but students from other sections would frequently come sit in on his lectures if they didn’t understand the material.</p>
<p>Our son went to a very selective private school and did the premed coursework + economics concentration as a freshman. It was a real shock for him. He’d sailed through all the AP science and calculus with ease and for the first time in his life had to really learn to study. His roommates were in different types of classes that tended not to meet until the afternoon, more humanities based. His were mostly problem set classes with multiple midterms, lab quizzes, just super high intensity. And the students were all very bright and driven. So yes, freshman year was very stressful for him. He wondered if he was smart enough to do science in college and whether he belonged at his college. </p>
<p>Other posters are correct in asking about sleep. Kids don’t usually select their freshman roommates and this can make getting enough sleep really challenging. Then there’s the problem of finding a good place to study. Ours never liked libraries for studying but his room was not a viable place to study. He eventually found that he did well at some of the dining halls that stayed open or in coffee shops (but watch the caffeine). </p>
<p>I actually think it may be a good sign that the OP’s daughter is a little freaked right now. Ours was, too, and ended up with fabulous grades that year while a great many kids gave up on premed and transferred to different majors. She may be doing a good deal better than is her perception.</p>
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<p>I’ve heard that.</p>
<p>On the topic of AP classes bumping a kid up into higher classes with non-Freshman students who aren’t still adjusting, I took Calculus I early and seriously regretted it when I was in Cal II my first semster away from home. I’ve got to agree with ordinarylives. Take these classes as prep for and a baseline intro to the sequence of required classes. Skipping ahead just ensures that you are going to be missing something. Much better to retake Calc I or Chem I while developing good study habits and establishing a network of friends. Expected to be overwhelmed, espeically if you are trying to keep up with Sophomores.</p>
<p>Agree on taking a wary approach to using AP to skip over college classes. APs are useful in that they can enable credit fulfillment and accelerate graduation if that is useful for the student. I don’t see AP classes as really equivalent to college classes.</p>
<p>Is she taking the first course in the chem sequence or the second? If she jumped right into the second course, she should definitely go to her prof asap and get his recommendations.</p>
<p>I sympathize. Check out my thread “What do I tell her?”. My D got through basic chem last year and then Organic Chemistry I but now is struggling in Organic Chemistry II. I remember her High School hem class and she had a horrible teacher who everyone knows is horrible. She was unprepared for college level chem. If you read my thread you might get some ideas for strategies to help her. The other posters there were extremely helpful and supportive.</p>
<p>Yes it is common for kids to be overwhelmed in college, but it is also common for kids to find it easier in college. </p>
<p>I think it all comes down to two things: how easy/difficult your high school is and/or how easy/difficult your college is. Just because a kid takes AP’s in high school does not mean they are well prepared for college. It depends entirely on how the subject is taught. </p>
<p>I have a son in his 2nd year of engineering school and one thing I would absolutely not recommend is having a kid skip something like ‘calc 1’ in college because they took the AP class and can opt out. I think AP’s are good for the experience and the challenge, and if you have classes that you have to get out of the way, but won’t have to take subsequent classes (ie, calc 2, calc 3), they are fine. BUT high schools simply don’t teach the way colleges do. They just don’t. Son knew a lot of kids who opted out of calc 1 1st semester and took calc 2 1st semester - they struggled.</p>
<p>My S1 at Ohio State is having a terrible time freshman fall quarter in calc 2. At least now we know, might be calc 1 winter and calc 2 again spring. Dang it, why don’t they tell them this? He is already taking 2 engineering classes, chemistry and cals 2 and feeling really terrible, ready to join the army in his text this morning…</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. It can be difficult to convince kids what to do - I suggested she take first year Calculus again but she didn’t listen. She got a 74 in her Calculus midterm and 78 in Chemistry. I think she has what it takes once she figures out the right study pattern and what is expected. Being used to mid 90’s marks in high school makes 70’s look really bad and it is so painful to see her
so unhappy but six weeks is a pretty short adjustment time. Your input was really helpful and I will pass it on to her.</p>
<p>Sounds pretty normal to me. I just graduated with a science degree, and it really just takes some adjustment. Most importantly, science classes are all about the curve, not the raw scores. </p>
<p>Science classes tend to be curved, sometimes heavily (Organic II!). It definitely sucks to study so much for a low raw score, especially for students used to seeing scores in the 90s. But, honestly, a 78 isn’t terrible, depending on the average, it might actually be pretty good. In my chem classes, that would have been a solid B or B+. Most of my science courses had exam averages in the low 70s or even 60s, especially in harder classes like chem II, calc II, and organic.</p>
<p>It also just takes time to learn how much to study, how exactly to study, and how to balance school with the rest of your life. Calc II is a pretty tough course for a freshman, and chem is no cakewalk either. To me it sounds like your daughter is doing fine, those grades definitely are not terrible for a first semester freshman. I bet she’ll adjust and start doing better, and I also imagine that once those grades are curved, she’ll be pleasantly surprised</p>