Help! Maybe failing :(

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I'm a freshman at Duke, and I'm taking:
Math 32L Intermediate Calculus
Writ 20 (required)
Phy 41 Intro Physics
Chem 151L Organic Chemistry</p>

<p>I have A's in all of my classes except Chem 151. I studied for the first test, but I got ~70/150 (avg was 90/150). I thought I just needed to study harder for the second exam, so I studied like crazy, but I ended up doing even worse. I have almost perfect scores in lab (25% of final grade). My options are:</p>

<p>1) Stick it out. There only a few more weeks left, and I'd hate to have to suffer through it again. I just got a study buddy, and I've been talking to my professor during office hours, so I feel I like I understand the material better. There is still 45% of the grade unaccounted for. </p>

<p>2) Drop it. The highest I can probably get is a C, although I'm not entirely sure. I'm not pre-med, but I do want to major in biology and go to graduate school for microbiology. I can only withdraw from one course at Duke. It shows up as WP or WF, so "they" will know roughly what I would have gotten anyway.</p>

<p>Either way, I have to decide ASAP (supposed to be in by Friday).</p>

2

<p>Work as if you're trying to get an A and you might just pull it off. Some professors will bump you up even more if they see really dramatic improvement for the rest of the semester.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the advice. My advisor agreed; she told me the worst possible thing I could do would be to give up and slack off.</p>

4

<p>are you studying enough? 3 hours outside class for every hour in class isn't unreasonable, maybe you'll need even more for o-chem.</p>

<p>Are you studying effectively? Many frosh at good schools are handicapped by, ironically, their intelligence. In HS the courses are geared to the average HS student, not the average college student (let alone the students at top colleges). So many bright kids never learn good study habits because they're bright enough to get by with cursory studying and last-minute cram sessions. This doesn't work in college where everyone is bright and the classes are geared towards the expectations that you're studying effectively. There are many online sources of how to study for classes like o-chem; see for example
<a href="http://chemistry.umeche.maine.edu/CHY251/howto.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://chemistry.umeche.maine.edu/CHY251/howto.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://salc.wsu.edu/Assistance/handouts/study_organic.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://salc.wsu.edu/Assistance/handouts/study_organic.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>many students find workbooks useful. These are books with thousands of solved problems and an explanation of each solution.</p>

5

<p>I'm in the same situation, just in general chemistry (at Northeastern University). I know that's kind of sad because gen.chem is a foundation course, but im just having a lot more trouble in it than i thought i would. i know that i need to change my studying skills, and i'm definitely going to use those links that mikemac posted.</p>