failed a semester of college

I did good my first semester of college. But second semester I fell apart. I failed 3 out 5 classes and my GPA is so so low. my parents think I did great my first year of college and I don’t know how to tell them I failed. I went to a community college and still have another year here. Is it too late for me? can I still eventually get into a university and bring my GPA up? I’m freaking out and think I might of screwed up my whole life. please help with what I can do!

My wild guess is that you wasted one year, in that you will need two good years before transferring to a university. Your academic advisor however should know far better than I.

Is your CC name of “partystar” a hint regarding what went wrong?

If I were your parent, I would be reluctant to support you continuing in community college unless and until I was pretty sure that you were ready to focus strongly on academics.

my CC name has nothing to do with it. Thanks for your suggestion

@partystar101, you didn’t screw up your whole life. You did flunk three classes and if you really want a college education, then you need to figure out what steps are needed to repair your situation. It may take longer than two years though to gain the status that is required to transfer as I assume there are both credit and GPA requirements. Do you have an advisor at your community college? Are there academic support services at your community college? These may be good places to start. With these services you might be able to come up with a plan to repair your circumstances.

Come clean to your parents. They might be upset or disappointed at first, but they also may be able to help you too.

I went to CC for three years. I was put on academic probation while at CC, which is when I finally woke up and got serious about my education. I spent six years total getting my degree. It’s never too late.

Yes, your parents aren’t not going to be thrilled because they have a financial stake in this (even if it’s just feeding, clothing and sheltering you) and your grades are shouting out “bad investment”. College is difficult: classes are difficult, focus is difficult, discipline is difficult, planning is difficult, stamina is difficult. So is life with just a high school diploma for most people. If you feel that college is ultimately your route to a better life for yourself (be that income, connections, fulfillment, etc.), you will need to fight for this.

You will have to come clean with your parents. Throwing yourself at their feet and asking them to fix this problem is not showing the maturity you need to get through college. You will get more buy-in from them if you acknowledge that YOU screwed up, you know WHY you screwed up, and what you plan to do to NOT screw up anymore. Also, give yourself a timeframe to turn it around - 1 semester, 1 year, whatever make sense. And come up with alternatives if it doesn’t work out.

It ain’t over yet - if you want it badly enough, you can make it happen.

If you were my kid I would want:

  1. You to come to me and let me know what happened without me finding out someother way
  2. An honest assessment of what went wrong
  3. What you will do differently
  4. For you to pay for the next semester (or give your summer earnings toward it) so you have some skin in the game.
  5. Give your parents more visibility in how you are doing during the semesters…show them your grades, etc.

Here are things you can do if you aren’t already:
So to do well, consider the following:

  1. GO TO CLASS, BUY THE BOOK, READ THE CHAPTERS, AND DO THE HOMEWORK!

  2. Go to Professor’s office hours early in the semester and Ask this question: “I know this is a really difficult class-- what are some of the common mistakes students make and how can I avoid them?”

  3. If you have problems with the homework, go to Prof’s office hours. If they have any “help sessions” or “study sessions” or “recitations” or any thing extra, go to them.

  4. Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.

  5. Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or whatever. Watch videos on line about the topic you are studying.

  6. Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)

  7. If things still are not going well, get a tutor.

  8. Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.

  9. If you feel you need to withdraw from a class, talk to your advisor as to which one might be the best …you may do better when you have less classes to focus on. But some classes may be pre-reqs and will mess your sequence of classes up.

  10. For tests that you didn’t do well on, can you evaluate what went wrong? Did you never read that topic? Did you not do the homework for it? Do you kind of remember it but forgot what to do? Then next time change the way you study…there may be a study skill center at your college.

  11. How much time outside of class do you spend studying/doing homework? It is generally expected that for each hour in class, you spend 2-3 outside doing homework. Treat this like a full time job.

  12. At first, don’t spend too much time other things rather than school work. (sports, partying, rushing fraternities/sororities, video gaming etc etc)

  13. If you run into any social/health/family troubles (you are sick, your parents are sick, someone died, broke up with boy/girlfriend, suddenly depressed/anxiety etcetc) then immediately go to the counseling center and talk to them. Talk to the dean of students about coordinating your classes…e.g. sometimes you can take a medical withdrawal. Or you could withdraw from a particular class to free up tim for the others. Sometimes you can take an incomplete if you are doing well and mostly finished the semester and suddenly get pneumonia/in a car accident (happened to me)…you can heal and take the final first thing the next semester. But talk to your adviser about that too.

  14. At the beginning of the semester, read the syllabus for each class. It tells you what you will be doing and when tests/HW/papers are due. Put all of that in your calendar. The professor may remind you of things, but it is all there for you to see so take initiative and look at it.

  15. Make sure you understand how to use your online class system…Login to it, read what there is for your classes, know how to upload assignments (if that is what the prof wants).

  16. If you get an assignment…make sure to read the instructions and do all the tasks on the assignment. Look at the rubric and make sure you have covered everything.

  17. If you are not sure what to do, go EARLY to the professors office hours…not the day before the assignment is due.

You might think that this is all completely obvious, but I have read many stories on this and other websites where people did not do the above and then are asking for help on academic appeal letters.

It isn’t too late for you. You do need to meet with an advisor to figure out if you should be repeating any of the failed classes. Also you need to identify the reasons for your poor performance. It is rare to fail community college classes if you attend every class and do the assigned work.