I’m a third year electrical engineering student. Last year I got a low GPA and failed one class. My goal was to increase my GPA this semester. I took 6 classes. 4 from the ee department. One of them is principles of bioengineering which is pretty easy. So, I practically have 3 serious classes. I’m not doing well in one and the professor won’t give us any grades or evaluation before the withdrawal deadline. There’s a chance that I’ve done very bad in my midterm. I probably won’t fail, but will get a bad grade. Since my resume is already far from impressive, should I withdraw? Will a W leave me far behind for getting into graduate school?
I wouldn’t worry about grad school if you can’t get through undergrad.
I was going through some rough stuff last year, which really hurt my studies. I definitely can get through it.
One bad grade won’t matter unless it is in your desired speciality, but a poor GPA matters a LOT. Worry less about individual grades and more about overall GPA, and ask yourself why you want to try grad school if you are struggling in undergrad - not only will getting IN be difficult, but the difficulty of classes shoots up as well.
I failed a class and got two Ws when I was in college. In the same semester! My junior year. The class I failed was social psychology, which is my field. I finished my PhD 3 years ago, and am gainfully employed in a great job.
Failing a class or having to withdraw doesn’t mean you can’t get through undergrad - nobody is perfect, and everyone fails at something at some point. Like you, OP, I was dealing with some rough stuff (including health-related things) when I was in college.
In my opinion, it’s better to withdraw if you know you are going to get an F or a D in a class. I would consider withdrawing if you’re going to get a C, especially if your transcript is already littered with Cs and Bs. (If you’re mostly an A student, and it’s a non-major class, then sometimes you can just take the C.)
It doesn’t look great, but it is possible to overcome. The best way is to get a trusted recommender who can address this in their letter of recommendation for you. Do you have any professors who are privy at least to part of your rough time? Or who you can talk to about this?
(Also, I don’t understand how it serves a professor not to give you some information about how you’re doing prior to the withdrawal deadline. How are you supposed to know whether or not to withdraw if you don’t know what your grade looks like? I don’t normally urge students to approach the chair, but in this situation I would suggest maybe asking the chair of the department if they can help you gather some information so you can make an informed choice about whether to withdraw and retake. Your profess shouldn’t be withholding information about your progress in the class from you.)