<p>If you appeal the grade it might bump you up to a C. If you know you can get an A in that class, take the D and make that class your absolute priority next semester and get an A. The D gets replaced in your GPA and an improvement from a D->A is going to be viewed within the context of the rest of your As. That's how I would play it. An A in statistics is definitely doable.</p>
<p>4.0 student and yet can't pass a stats class... and blame the difficulty of the final? Oh well, no comment.</p>
<p>kevin your second contribution to this thread was about as helpful as your first... not at all</p>
<p>kevin101,
if you can't be helpful...please don't reply to this thread. Thanks... </p>
<p>Sstory, Thanks.... I am going to try to talk to my professor, although I'm sure he is very firm about his grading policy. </p>
<p>Anyhow, in the case that i do get this "D" grade, and retake it and get an "A" next term... is there anyway I can appeal for the UC's...because technically my gpa would dramatically change again.</p>
<p>I just still think it's not fair. If I wanted a grade simply from ONE TEST, I would have just done credit by examination. I mean seriously, I put a lot of hard work throughout the WHOLE semester.</p>
<p>I don't know what the rules at your school are (or if there even are any), but if you had 82/80 going in to the final, getting a zero on the final should have left you with at least an 80 (the full points you had from the rest of the term's work, assuming the extra credit could not be used to bring you over full credit for that 80%). So, you should not have had to worry about getting less than a B-. </p>
<p>A D should be around a 65 average. You would have needed a negative score on the final to bring you from A+-level work worth 80% of your grade to a final score of D based on a final worth 20%. It seems to me like you have reason to complain to your school's administration. </p>
<p>I don't think it's right for the rules to change on you right at the end of the term. Sounds like your previous work was worth much less than 80% and the final is worth much more than 20% (did you get a D on the final? Is the final actually being counted as 100% of the grade for the course?). It sounds like a confusing situation. If you did get a 65 on the final, for example, you should still have ended up with a B+/A- depending on your grading scale.</p>
<p>Get ready for UC work... most of the courses at UC schools are mainly based on exams: midterms + finals. Most of the times: 20% homework, 30% midterm and 50% final and of course this also varies depending on the professors' types.</p>
<p>At UCs, no matter how hard you prepare or how well you do on homework, if you can't handle exams which are usually crazily hard; you can't pass the class. Period! </p>
<p>Most of the comments have been made to help the poster so there is no need to further repeat the same saying. My point is that your professor at that class seems to put a lot on weight on final which is very similar to the ones at UC schools. Second point that i implied: Don't be overconfident. Don't start with the mind set that you are 4.0 GPA student and you can do everything; be prepared for challenges. </p>
<p>Anyways, I'm sorry for saying something that you don't wanna hear but I wish you luck and be prepared for UCs' level academic work.</p>
<p>Actually, I finally heard from my professor today, and it turns out that I got a 74 on the final, which gave me a 97% in the class. I'm so happy now. Thanks for the help everyone. </p>
<p>Kevin101, thanks for the warning of UCs! :)</p>
<p>dasani25, congratulation! I kind of knew this ahead of time. This is actually a good experience especially at the moment that you can finally confirm your grade. Isn't it really insane that you were thinking about failing but actually you receive an A at the end. </p>
<p>I also had quite some experiences like this before. I still remember that I thought I was failing a differential equation right before I transferred. The class had around 25 students but every started to drop after the professor's insane way of teaching. </p>
<p>Can you believe that in my differential equation class in a community college: we had daily quizzes on the materials RIGHT AFTER the lecture, we had to WRITE essays, we had ORAL EXAMS where we TEACH one on one to the professor on a particular chapter and answer his own questions, we had midterm and final that are long, tedious and extremely hard (the textbook difficulty level isn't close to it at all), we had to listen to some lecture at Cal Tech, we had to learn upper division materials like real analysis, advanced calculus, Laplace transforms, Fourier Series etc (even though this is a lower division differential course)...</p>
<p>That is why the class turned from having 25 students to only 8 students who must stay to pass it to transfer to UCs. We all thought we were failing and even thinking about petition to the school to complain about his ridiculous teaching style. We kept struggling and at the end, I believe almost all of us received grade A and the professor even recommended the math department to give us "honors in calculus or mathematics" award together with $50 bucks. </p>
<p>Finally, after passing his class, most of us went to UCs: 3 went to UCLA (count me in), 1 Cal, 1 UCSD, other 3 (not sure). </p>
<p>When I took "real analysis" at UCLA, I found that I already learned most of the materials from lower division differential equation course. Every math majors says that "real analysis" is the toughest course at UCLA, I find that claim to be true. However, I still managed to receive A... big thanks to the professor of differential equation.</p>
<p>Sorry for such a long discussion but your story reminded me about my failing--A experience.</p>
<p>Kevin101, Thanks...It seriously was the best feeling ever. I thought I would fail at everything after taking that exam. I am transferring, but I actually took that course in the evening at CAL because BCC has a program that offers CC students to take CAL courses, and I went in thinking that I'd ace it easily (was being overconfident)...but I struggled big time...and I never felt happier finding out that I didn't end up failing...and actually getting an A. </p>
<p>Are you a math major? You certainly talk like one. My boyfriend also did his undergrad in math/engineering @ cal.....(now as a grad student here) and oh boy ...he can't stop talking about "real analysis" or stochastic processes.... lol I've always noticed that about math majors though...they're always willing to stick around for the challenge...I'm certainly thinking about taking more math courses in the future...otherwise I'll be curious about it for the rest of my life... heh!</p>
<p>Here is what happened. I think you took previous math classes with professors who didn't teach you how to think. Students comes unprepared from high school and unwilling to do extra work in college. So, professors are forced to teach the subject at the most superficial level to make students pass the class and give professors good evaluations. As a result, even students like you (with good work ethics) do not learn.</p>
<p>Here is what you should do. If you are absolutely sure you know the subject within the course requirements (that is, you have read the whole textbook and went over every problem in it), make an appointment to talk with the professor, explain your situation (that you know all the material in the textbook, that you can solve any problem from it, and that you need an A for the transfer), and ask for an oral exam on the spot in lieu of the final. If you do this politely, he will give you a couple of questions/problems and you would be able to get your A.</p>
<p>Edit: Congrats on your A. Still keep this in mind though. Teaching to the student level is a big problem in math and science classes at the community colleges.</p>
<p>Kevin, which CC did you go to? Since you had to go to some lectures at CalTech, I assume you went to PCC?</p>
<p>To dasani25:
Yes I'm a math major but I study a broad array of subjects:
Statistics, Accounting (getting ready for CPA exams), Actuarial Science (passed exam-P, preparing for more), completed 2 MBA courses, computer science (accepted to a graduate program but didn't choose this path) and industrial engineering (current graduate student). </p>
<p>Interestingly enough, next semester, I will be taking "Elements of Stochastic processes" (graduate level) which was mentioned in your previous post. </p>
<p>To l84ad8
Yes, I went to PCC. Are you a student at PCC as well?</p>
<p>lollol, a D in stats...at a CC?!</p>
<p>get ready for UC! sounds like many other CC students who get really good at regurgitating just what is needed to get a good grade at CC, rather than actually learning the material (aka high school). I don't care how <em>crazy</em> hard the final was, this is still intro to statistics, I highly doubt finding the mean is too terribly challenging. </p>
<p>this is all coming from a math IDIOT who got a B in intro stats and an a- in upper div. stats at UCD, btw..</p>
<p>and "petitioning a grade" is full of lulz too, I've tried it and they basically look at you as if you are the village idiot. You had all semester to prove yourself, writing some b/s paper should have no recourse on how you are graded in the class...</p>
<p>i don't understand why people are insulting individuals who may not do well in statistics... I barely passed statistics in cc (of course i did have a professor who came to class drunk all the time so i didn't learn anything) but that's besides the point... it doesn't mean that your not going to be able to handle UC work, especially if it has little to do w/ your major. I now have excellent grades at Berkeley so it didn't hurt me</p>
<p>The guy who originally posted this thread said it was all a mistake and he got an A. You guys need to read back.</p>
<p>i know the op is good to go & i'm happy for him....i'm just addressing the people who are making rude comments about people who have problems in statistics in general or any one particular subject for that matter</p>
<p>lovtoolearn:
For math, statistics, engineering majors, a non-passing grade in introduction to statistics is NOT acceptable. Basic statistics is one of the basic and fundamental tools in the field so if one can't even pass basic statistics, he/she will not do quite well in the major. </p>
<h2>Of course, for other majors like art, English, history... statistics might not be relevant. </h2>
<p>I see some people making conclusion based on their examples alone but remember that your case is only 1 case out of many. </p>
<p>My point above is don't make hasty conclusion based on merely 1 of your example. To make sound conclusion of a population, you need "big" and "representative" sample and use "inferential statistics" to characterize the population.</p>
<p>kevin...i am not making an assumption based on one example...quite the contrary...i am addressing comments that are doing that very thing...for an example, some of the previous comments were questioning how a 4.0 student could get a D in stats...and that stats is the easiest math class to take for a transfer... those were all assumptions based on their own experiences was it not? So I am simply stating that just because they might find it an easy subject or that a 4.0 student is somehow inadequate for doing poorly in a subject is not only an assumption but its rude and not helpful to anyone. In addition there are many majors that do not require you to do well in statistics and does not necessarily mean that the person is going to do poorly at a UC just because they didn't do well in one subject. I am not just basing it my own experience but that of several people that I know including one of my friends who graduated from Berkeley a few years ago and now works in his field. He said that statistics was his most difficult subject and had the professor not curved the grades for the entire class, no one would have passed his class.Perhaps that professor was not a very good teacher but regardless what I am saying is that just because someone finds a particular subject easy does not mean others are idiots just because they might not find it as easy.</p>
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<p>Kevin...WOW. You would not be even taking statistics unless you need it as a transferrable math because you are not doing a math/science related major, all of those majors require the calc [and above] series instead. Obviously then many of the people are not going to be math-inclined, so the fact that they struggle says NOTHING about what kind of student they are outside of math.</p>
<p>
so what, as a math major you found statistics easy? GO FIGURE. I'm would not take this personally if it was me who was not that good at math; on the contrary I am an engineering major and find math to be one of my easier subjects. But my gf who is probably smarter than you did have to work extremely hard to keep her 4.0 when taking statistics, so I know success in a math class is not representative of their intelligence.
Not just meaning to pick on kevin this is to all those who made the a-hole comments to the effect "can't pass a stats class at a cc!?!?!?"</p>