<p>I agree w/ MD Mom and Magneto.</p>
<p>See your professor, it helps. This semester, I have been speaking with two of my pofessors on a regular bases. For one of those classes (English Comp II), I was only pulling at the most C+ for my papers because the professor was such a hard grader. I also was falling behind on the assignments and thats when I decided that we needed to talk because I refused to fail. I wrote so many papers at the end of this semester, I even did an extra credit paper. I checked my grade today and he gave me a B-. Thats not bad for a student who only turned in one assignment on time for the semester. If I didn’t have multiple meetings with him I would have failed for sure.</p>
<p>BTW I could have gotten a higher grade if I would have turned the assignments in on time, but better late then never.</p>
<p>
I see the problem here. You didn’t actually learn the material. And I don’t say that in an accusatory way, just to identify the core problem. Read on and I’ll explain how to fix this. </p>
<p>You need to acknowledge, though, that if you can just solve problems when you have the textbook in front of you then you haven’t learned the material. And for many classes like calculus, physics, there are 2 things to keep in mind – there aren’t that many separate principles to learn, and you simply can’t cram. what many students who cram try to do is remember problems from the text and homework long enough to recognize them on the test, and then massage the answer they’ve crammed to look like its an answer to the test question. I can invent dozens of variations on the same basic principle, faster than you can learn them. The only way to pass classes like this is to understand the principle and then apply it. Which takes work…</p>
<p>Fortunately there are books like the “Calculus Problem Solver”, best $20 you’ll ever spend. Just go to the chapter that matches your textbook section, cover the answer, and start working. After each problem check it against the fully worked out answer in the book. Keep doing this until you are getting them right. This will take time – a good rule of thumb is to spend 3 hours outside of class for every hour in class, which means you should be spending a least 9 hours a week on homework and studying for just this calculus class. And since you say its been a hard class for you, it might take even more than this at first. Learning math is more like learning to play tennis than its like learning the History of the US in the 18th Century or some other liberal-arts class. Stories are easy to remember – a few facts to tie them together that you memorize, then you can read the chapter in History when its assigned and again before the test and you’ll do fine. Math is something you have to practice, and practice regularly.</p>
<p>UVA2013. </p>
<p>You can surely pull yourself up after this year. It just takes a lot of time management, motivation, keeping focus and being organized. </p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>yea u will be alright. Your freshman year is always the most difficult year because you’re trying to get adjusted.</p>
<p>i was in a similar situation my freshman year. Except i ended up with a 2.2 at the end. Matter fact in the fall of my sophomore year, my GPA was EXACTLY a 2.0. But the reason my GPA dropped during the fall of my sophomore year was because of pure laziness. However, I bounced back in the spring and ended up with a 3.2 for the semester and 2.4 by the end of my sophomore year. So i basically brought my GPA up almost a half a point in one semester.</p>
<p>So just keep in mind just apply your self more and manage your time better and you will be fine. If you’re aiming for a 3.0, you can def have that (or really close) by the end of your sophomore year by atleast getting a 3.0 semester GPA for both semesters.</p>