Could I raise a bad GPA?

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>I'm currently a sophomore in college and I am wondering how high I could raise my 2.7 GPA? What is mathematically the highest I could get by the time I graduate?</p>

<p>This is a projection of how my grades will look like this semester:</p>

<p>Anthropology- A
Educational Psychology-B+
Speech- B or higher.
Philosophy- ? (It seems like I will get an A+ on the second test and I failed the first test partly because of personal problems)</p>

<p>To boost my GPA, I am taking one winter intersession class and two summer classes. I might take another winter class for good measure. I will take summer and winter classes every year until I graduate.</p>

<p>I basically did horribly because a lack of direction or any grasp of a goal at all makes me lazy. I feel as if I'm only in college because that's what you do after high school.
I wish I could say that I am in college for intellectual enrichment, but being surrounded by idiots and people who like to chat up hot air are not convincing me this.</p>

<p>How do I become motivated when I don't even know why I'm in college?</p>

2

<p>Put studying and grades first. That's your number one priority, because you don't know what you want to do and a low GPA will jettison your prospects when you DO figure out what you want to do.</p>

<p>So do all the recommended things. Study for 2 hours right after a class ends (if your schedule permits) and review what was just covered in the class. Read the chapter before the class meeting so you already know the info being covered during the class. </p>

<p>Next, whenever possible, study in the classroom where the test will be held. Some research shows you do better on the test this way.</p>

<p>OK, so now you have disciplined yourself to do this studying.</p>

<p>Next, get exercise for at least 30 minutes each day to get yourself moving and make yourself hopeful.</p>

<p>Get involved in clubs on campus. Meet people. Start chatting. Get your studying under control and then turn outward and do other things besides studying (if your major isn't too difficult, that is).</p>

<p>Once you get positive about life and participate, and are active in disciplining yourself to study so at least you have some direction in that you are performing your duties, so to speak, to achieve a high GPA, you will start to be influenced by something or other that will give you a clue what you want to do with your life. It could be a comment someone makes about a class they have that inspires you to sign up for that class, it could be hanging out with a new friend who has a certain major that you never thought of but the way he talks about his career goal maybe inspires you.</p>

<p>You don't know what will trigger an interest in you. That's why you have to study for your classes, and then get involved with the life going on around you and stay open-minded. </p>

<p>If nothing clicks re. a career, then my advice is to consider where your natural strengths lie, ie. what was your highest SAT score, can you debate well, go to the counseling center at your college and take one of those aptitude tests. See where your talents lie and then explore possible careers that require those abilities. </p>

<p>Pick a major that is based on your talents. If you find you hate that kind of work once you graduate, no problem, get some kind of job after graduation and keep exploring possiblities and when you find the career you do want, take classes at night just in that major. Unless you fall in love with engineering after college graduation, you should only have to take about 10-12 night classes to get that major for the career you want, ONCE YOU ALREADY HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE. </p>

<p>It took me half a lifetime and also life experience doing it at home to finally figure out what I love doing and then, having already obtained that college degree, I just went back to college and took those 10 courses to get that major. I currently love my job. </p>

<p>So keep my situation in mind and that should help you relax some. It certainly isn't going to take you 'half your lifetime' to figure out what you love and how you can make the best contribution to society in the work you do. Just keep an open mind about what kinds of possible careers you might be interested in.</p>

3

<p>Here's another comment, which sounds a bit 'off the wall'</p>

<p>If you can dance well, you are physically coordinated. If you don't know what you want to do, consider majoring in lab technology or nursing. </p>

<p>You will quickly find out if you can eliminate those majors once you take a few courses in that direction. If you can tolerate them, and you still don't know what you want to do, then consider staying in that major, because you will definitely find a job after graduation. And remember, if you can't find your life's goal yet, then you just want to find employment after graduation while you continue to explore different areas of job possibilities after graduation.</p>

<p>Sometimes it's a matter of elimination if you can't find the field of study that you love. You have to start trying things. Maybe you should take an internship instead of a course in the summer, in a field you are considering. the internship will tell you whether that area of interest is a good match for you.</p>

<p>When you can't decide, it's time to start trying things out. You have to become active, because you waste too much time when you stand still and try to think your way through to a career. Figuring out what you love is actually an active process and thinking only helps after you have some experiences and then you think about and evaluate your reaction to those expereinces.</p>

4

<p>Really, unless you get pretty much As from here on out, with maybe a B here or there, your GPA isnt going to rise that much.</p>

5

<p>Thank you so much ivydreamin, but should I pick an internship or summer classes this year? I wonder if an internship would get in the way of my class schedule.
Which one is a better priority? The internship to seek job opportunities and what I may like or summer classes to boost GPA?
Don't most internships have a GPA cut-off?</p>

6

<p>Mathematically speaking, if you want to figure out what your highest possible GPA can be, use a calculator like this one Gradepoint</a> Calculator: Iowa State University </p>

<p>Enter all your currently earned classes and their grades, figure out how many credits you are likely to take before you graduate, and play around with giving yourself different grades for those credits (For example, if you think you're going to take 45 more credits toatal, try at with 45 credits of A, 15 credits of B and 30 credits of A, 10 credits of C, 25 of B, and 10 credits of A, etc., etc.)</p>

<p>As to your last question, I'd say if you can get an internship, do it. Or you can do both a class and an internship--that's what I did last summer.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

7

<p>Well, I don't know a thing about internships, so I can't advise you re. GPA requirement.</p>

<p>I really think you need to find an academic counselor at your college. You need to go in and take some tests to pinpoint any interest you may have and what talents you have. </p>

<p>You need to start from the beginning, and be methodical to a point, until something clicks and you find an interest, which you can then start investigating.</p>

<p>In the meantime, you cannot let yourself slip re. your grades. A 2.7 is not horrendous, esp at the end of freshman year. That's just one year out of 4, and your GPA will rise continuously as you get A's and B's. </p>

<p>Are you a young woman or young man? Would you consider teaching? If so, you need to tutor someone in your class. The reason to tutor is to see if you explain things well, and if you do, and are open to being a teacher, you could put that down on a list you can start, to collect possible careers. (I know someone who tutored to help out a friend in college, and recalled how much he enjoyed it and learned the subject better himself so he could tutor in it, and by golly, he became a teacher in the end, after a detour as a technical writer. That volunteer tutoring he had done in college to help out someone helped him more in the long run!) And of course, if you are not a good explainer, then do everyone a favor and don't go into teaching! Or not until you have kids of your own, get a lot of on-the-job practice with them, and then decide to go back to college and just take certification courses since you will already have a college degree in something else! (see, your choice today isn't set in stone, once you have the degree you can always go back to college and take 10 courses and voila, you have a new college major!)</p>

<p>You do not have to have a formal internship to start eliminating or find possibilities. Start your career search right now. </p>

<p>You can volunteer over Christmas (call them up now) to work in a hospital. Go hang out in the lab. Want to work with machines? That's what a lab technologist major does. Want to be a nurse, or respiratory tech or x-ray tech? I know that just watching doesn't tell you much. See if you can actually DO something. You are trying to discover what skills you have at this point.</p>

<p>Want to work for a newspaper, maybe? Call them up and volunteer, ask what can you do for them, make copies, run errands, whatever, just so you get in there and watch what people do. If it looks interesting, go over to the college newspaper office and volunteer there. You will get some college experience in this field and that makes you more employable later after you graduate and can show some unpaid job experience by working at the college newspaper.</p>

<p>See, there is nothing formal about this. You can take those summer courses instead of an internship. </p>

<p>I just have to mention--I'm not too crazy about the course titles you are taking this semester. They seem pretty random. Can you go see an advisor and get some basic pre-requisites for maybe math (are you good at math?) or science or journalism or English or whatever, because when your junior year rolls around, you are going to want to concentrate in some area or other, and I doubt that education class you are taking will be helpful at all as a pre-req, unless it is a general elective. Still, I'm not sure why you are taking that if you don't know if you want to or, more importantly, are good at teaching. Far better to start exploring in, say, a philosophy class or something that will make you THINK, even if it isn't necessarily going to count toward your career goal directly. Taking a hard math class will make your semester harder, but it will make you have to think and reason, and that will help you in any career.</p>

<p>So: your game plan might be to go get testing at the academic counseling dept on your college campus, just to get ideas for your abilities and any interests. Start volunteering now while at college to help others in tutoring a class that is rather easy for you so you can check out a possible career as a teacher. Go to the college newspaper and volunteer write some articles for them and see if you want to take a journalism class that way. Could you volunteer to help in the lab in college? Any interest in that?<br>
Set it up now so that over Christmas, you volunteer at a local hospital and go check out the lab work, the nursing, the respiratory therapist, the physical therapy dept, and maybe even the maintenance dept if you think you might like to major in construction management. </p>

<p>This is a time of exploration. Remember, you are gathering experiences in the world of work. You will then have, immediately and also over time,personal volunteer experiences to reflect on as you ponder what you like. I'd take notes of your reactions to the volunteer experience itself (not the people you interact with, unless that is helpful) if I were you. What you liked and disliked, etc. Might be helpful to you later.</p>

<p>I'm hampered because I don't know you. I don't know your personality, your abilities (are you better in math or English or science or do you love history or what? artistic? musical?). Do your parents enjoy their work? That could be a clue about what you might consider doing for a living. if your mom is a nurse's aide, for instance, you might love nursing. If she works in administration, maybe you'd like to be the head of a department or else manage a law firm, or major in marketing/business. What parents do can be a clue to you if they enjoy their work.</p>

<p>I guess take those college courses (note my suggestions above for what sorts of courses you should be taking) in the summer rather than formal internships until you narrow down the search some to where your talents lie. Then you can take a summer off to try out an internship.</p>

8

<p>Sure, you can raise it, but if you have no sense of direction or any idea what you want to do, it might be best to withdraw from college and work in the "real world" for awhile until you get a bit more of a sense of direction. It would have been best to have done this right out of college since your 2.7 may hurt your chances of getting back into a university, but if you are truly unable to focus on your study for lack of direction and motivation, then that may be best.</p>

9

<p>Whoops, I see you are already taking philosophy! Sorry, all Icould recall was that educational psych class, and I was puzzled why you were taking it. </p>

<p>Glad to see you are getting some pre-reqs out of the way right now. Any reason you aren't taking 15 credits? Well, never mind. If you took 15, though, it would take the pressure off having to go to summer school. But I'm sure you have your private reasons.</p>

<p>Best wishes!</p>

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<p>I am a young woman. The reason I choose the Ed. Psych course was because I was planning on majoring in psychology, but then I realized there aren't many career opportunities in it. I was also thinking about teaching but then I realized that I did not want to deal with rude and lazy students as well as their parents.
I was told that I would make a good teacher though. </p>

<p>I didn't take 15 credits because I had to register at the last minute. There was an issue between the school and I, therefore they did not let me register for awhile. To make a long story short, it had nothing to do with delinquency or breaking school regulations. Since I had very few options, I just took random classes.</p>

<p>Math and science are my worst subjects. I was thinking of journalism too, but what are the odds that I'm going to find a good career in a periodical that I like?</p>

<p>The problem is that I have very limited interests. There isn't much I like outside of reading and writing and I know I'm not the best in the field by far. My Mom is a hairstylist and my Dad is a Comm. Tech. They both don't like their jobs.</p>

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<p>What made you decide against psych? Depending on what you want to do, there are quite a few options (industrial/origanizational [consulting with businesses], developmental [academia, research, working as a consultant for family-centered organizations], educational [developing curriculum, consulting with schools], clinical, counseling, expertimental [academia, research], social work [policy work, case management, advocacy, counseling, etc.]).</p>

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<p>I decided against psych because I doubt I could deal with dysfunctional people and why should I think I could help such people anyway? I'm also not original when it comes to research. I like reading about psych, but I'm not the type who thinks out-of-the-box in any way.
industrial/organizational? hmm...I don't know.</p>

13

<p>Sounds like you have done a lot of reading, is this so? </p>

<p>Anyway, you have limited interests SO FAR. Time to get busier. I suggest you start volunteering as I mentioned earlier. You might really like something in the medical field, you never know until you try.</p>

<p>Also, have you considered teaching in elementary school? Kids are not lazy and rude in first grade unless you are talking about inner-city kids, who sometimes are. If you have been told you would be a good teacher, I would consider doing it. You could teach adult ed classes, you aren't limited to middle or high school, you know. By the way, I have heard it said that teachers are just 'frustrated actors', which I think is true. The best teachers use acting skills to get their info across to the students. Also, the best teachers are also intuitive (a talent that a psych major typically would have). There is a website that lists the abilities you have to have to be a good teacher. I think you can google 'characteristics of the best teachers' and find it that way. I'll do it and post it.</p>

<p>You keep saying you aren't that smart. Most people aren't, that's what the bell curve is all about. I'm sure you are smart enough to do something satisfying with your life. (for fun and enlightenment, take the free and real IQ test online. Type in "raven's progressive matrices denmark mensa' and then click on the English arrow and take the test. DO NOT pay any attention to the time clock ticking away, do not be nervous and just concentrate on each item. Do NOT expect to finish the test. You will probably get to about question 28 or so, and if you do, you are doing well. Get yourself a soft drink or a snack and munch while you take it just to get rid of any anxiety. I took that test twice, messed up first time as focused on the clock and rushed and didn't really lconcentrate on each item in turn. Then my brother took the test, in a methodical way and with zero anxiety, and scored 10 points higher than I did. So I re-took it, adopted his method, and scored 10 points higher the second go-round myself.)</p>

<p>Anyway, I digress. You might look into all the possibilities with a psych major since you thought of working in that field. Apparently there are quite a few.</p>

<p>Because you have had such limited experience, it sounds like, in what possible careers are out there, you need to spend some time exploring them. Making a trip to the academic counselor's office is clearly in order.</p>

<p>If after several months of exploring nothing appears appealing, I would remember that someone told me I'd make a good teacher and if I were you, I would go ahead and pursue a teaching career (elementary ed--like pre-K to third grade) since you don't know what else you like, and then once you are a teacher, you will have summers off to investigate other careers. I am a big believer in keeping the job market in mind, and so majoring in something practical if you have any ability at all in it. You also could work for the government upon graduation, they don't care what you majored in for some of their jobs. Or you could apply to work overseas as a teacher for the US government. That sort of thing. </p>

<p>Could you double major in psych and get certified as a pre-K to third grade teacher? Or minor in psych? </p>

<p>Go talk to the academic counselor. That's where to start.</p>