<p>My first semester of college just ended and I didn't do as well as I wanted to. I ended up with a 3.2 GPA. I wanted to pull a 4 and my parents told in various conversations throughout the semester that they expected a 4 as well. I have never been good at talking to my parents about grades. Throughout high school I came encountered a few semesters with bad grades and our conversations usually involved me with not saying anything and my dad screaming at me. Now that I'm in college I have a feeling that it's going to be worse since my parents are paying for it. I would like to know how to have a civilized argument with my parents, how do I bring this up? BTW my parents are asian.</p>
<p>“civilized argument” is an oxymoron. Wouldn’t you want to have a civilized conversation?</p>
<p>Expecting a 4.0 GPA is just unreasonable. The thing you need to ask yourself…did you do your best, or did you slack off? If you really did your best, you should explain that to your parents. Be prepared to tell them about the study groups, tutorial services, extra office hour help from your professors and the like. If you really availed yourself of these services, then you did your best. College is NOT high school and it is a hard adjustment for some students to make.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t think your GPA is awful for a first term freshman. But if yours and your parents expectations is for higher, then tell them the changes you will make next term to improve your GPA.</p>
<p>I think it is unreasonable to expect a student to be perfect.</p>
<p>I feel for you, it sounds like you’re tough on yourself, and your parents are tough on you too. Do you HAVE to tell them your grades? Can you tell them, “I did OK. Not as well as I wanted to, but it’s not a bad start” – and leave it at that? When my daughter went to college (I was paying for all of it too) I gave her a measure of privacy about grades. She was 18, knew what she had to do, I had no reason to believe she wasn’t doing her best. Without being evasive, could you draw a kind of a boundary about these things?</p>
<p>Congrats on our 3.2. Nothing to be disappointed about at all, and tell your parents I said so!! :)</p>
<p>Expecting a 4.0 may be unreasonable but students should know not to wrestle B’s out of the mouths of A’s (or some such verbal depiction :)). In other words, if you get a few B’s that’s understandable, but if you’re on the bubble on a few classes and only needed a few more points to get the A, most parents would question this. </p>
<p>The type of courses would also be important; A B in a hard class is quite different than a B in an easier class.</p>
<p>Unless you’re taking a semester of Gen-Eds, expecting a 4.0 is unreasonable.</p>
<p>This being your first semester, there is definetely time to grow and increase your gpa.</p>
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<p>Well, you could email them the “Flunked my first semester of college” thread to read. Once they panic – and also begin to realize that a lot of freshman have adjustment issues – telling them your actual grades will make you look quite stellar in comparison.</p>
<p>Many of our friends and family members are Asian and all other races. Most of us are fine as long as we know the students did their best. Most parents are aware that there is some adjusting going from HS to college. Point out what you’re planning to improve in terms of study habits, timelines, communication with teachers/TAs, etc. and that you’ve completed all the courses you enrolled in and did OK but will try to do even better now that you’re settling in.</p>
<p>I think the question is - did you do the best that you could? If you studied appropriately and went for help when needed then you tell your parents that school is difficult but you did the best you could. If you had some bad grades in HS, a 4.0 in college isn’t reasonable (it’s probably not reasonable anyway).</p>
<p>The thing is that I didn’t have a job or any other main time commitment, so in my mind a 4.0 was completely within my reach. This has been the point my parents have been making throughout the semester. They say “Since you have 15 credits and no job or major extracurricular we expect a 4.0.” The basis of their argument is that i’m spending much less time in the classroom, so I have more time to study.</p>
<p>Your parents are right about the fact that outside time commitments were probably not a factor in your grades being below 4.0.</p>
<p>But outside time commitments are only one of many factors that affect students’ grades. If it’s important to you to earn higher grades in the coming semesters, you might want to think about what factors contributed to your slightly disappointing grades this semester.</p>
<p>For example, some students develop the habit of doing most of their studying late at night, when they’re tired and not as efficient as they would be during the day. If that happened to you, you can change it by changing your schedule.</p>
<p>Others find that they tend to get lower grades on papers than exams. This could indicate a need for some help with writing – and most colleges have a writing center for that.</p>
<p>Some find that their high schools did not prepare them well for college in some subjects. In such cases, it might be necessary to retake a course or drop down to a lower level to make sure you have an adequate foundation before moving on. </p>
<p>And some people are majoring in engineering, where a 3.2 the first semester is actually very good. If you’re an engineering major, congratulations!</p>
<p>I am an engineering major.</p>
<p>In my opinion before you talk to your parents you need to take a hard look at how you did this semester and do some self-reflection. Were the grades simply the result of college being harder than expected and getting used to having less structure and more self-directed study? Are you in a course of study like engineering which is just plain hard and so a 3.2 is perfectly respectable? Were all the grades low Bs or did one class trip you up? Or did you goof off more than you should have so your grades are not as good as they should be.</p>
<p>While a 4.0 is pretty unrealistic getting 3.5 or somewhat higher may not be. You need to talk to your parents as an adult about what happened and set a reasonable goal for next semester. You want to be prepared to either tell them that your course of study is difficult, you worked as hard as you could, and a 3.2 is pretty darn good or that you now see where you went wrong and you have a plan to bring up your grades next semester. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Did not see you were an engineering major until I posted this. If you were taking engineering classes, a 3.2 is not bad at all and you have to help your parents understand that.</p>
<p>If my son got a 3.2, I would be doing the happy dance. That’s terrific!!</p>
<p>Remind yourself, and your parents, that a 4.0 gpa does not guarantee a job. It does not guarantee any sort of success – not grad school, not employment, not community service, not fame nor fortune. I suspect they will say “but it gives you a 1000% better chance” and maybe it does, compared to a 2.0. But given a choice between a 4.0 student who just hammered away at classes, and a 3.5 student who worked/participated/interned/served in the community, guess who “wins” in most venues? </p>
<p>If they go with “it reflects poorly on the family” you need to step away. This is YOUR life. YOURS. The only thing your grades reflect are how you did in classes, and perhaps your ability to multi-task and organize. They are not the value of your worth as a person or employee or doctoral student. You owe your parents nothing except your best effort. </p>
<p>There are 20 families in CT who will never get to worry about gpa. There are thousands more in ICUs, in oncology wards, in court, in poverty, in funeral homes who would love the chance to have this “problem”. Adjust your perspective, and be grateful you have done so well. :)</p>
<p>You say you wanted to pull a 4.0 so you are also disappointed. What is your analysis- did you not study enough, or not the right way, or is that an unrealistic goal? Yes you need to have the talk with the rents but you also must either adjust your expectations (med school?) or figure out how to achieve YOUR goal.
I feel bad that your parents put so much pressure in you and it really makes your life difficult but you will almost certainly disappoint them again sometime in your adult life and best, for your own mental health, you should learn how to confront without feeling abused.
Perhaps you should role play the conversation with a friend or relative who is familiar with your family dynamic or with a mental health professional at school if one is available. This could be the best and most useful lesson learned from your first year of college.
Good luck</p>
<p>At my ds’ engineering school - 3.2 earns “engineering honors” - like honor roll? As a parent that gave me some perspective when my high GPA HS kid brought home that 3.2.</p>
<p>My husband and I are engineers. We were discussing how pre meds and pre law need to have really high GPA’s to get into post graduate programs, but engineers just have to survive! Engineering courses teach a different way of looking at things than straight math or science. Not everyone gets it right away, and I think your 3.2 is a very very good GPA for a freshman engineer. I never (ever!) had a GPA that high, and I eventually got into a graduate program in engineering. Check out the GPA requirements for the engineering honor scocieties at your school. I bet you will qualify. And find a fun extra curricular to do. You need a way to de-stress to function at your best.</p>