<p>I'm an ME at UIUC and I'm not getting off to a good start haha.</p>
<p>I guess I never learned how to study in high school or developed any kind of work ethic, because I'm certainly not studying as much as I should be. </p>
<p>For Calc 3, I went to ~3 lectures and the only studying I did was copying down the online notes he posts, and doing the required webassigns (which I only did 50% of)</p>
<p>I studied the most for Chem 1, my worst and least interesting class, at about an average of ~1 hour/week. I missed around 40% of the online homework grade because I forgot to do them or I couldn't bring myself to start them until 20 minutes before the deadline.</p>
<p>For my Macroeconomics and Anthropology classes, I did 0 studying outside of class. I procrastinated like a **** on my Macro term paper and started it in the morning, 3 hours before I had to turn it in.</p>
<p>I'm expecting a 2.5 GPA.</p>
<p>I'm not sure where this lack of motivation/concentration is stemming from. To be honest, I didn't like any of my classes, except maybe a little bit of Calc 3. I don't think this means I'm not interested in engineering because these are only gen eds, right? I'm procrastinating on studying for my Chem final as I write this, and I don't know what's going on with me. </p>
<p>You have stated clearly what your problems are. Your lack of motivation can easily be solved by dropping out and getting a job flipping burgers for a semester or two. No one can motivate you except you. I wouldn’t count on getting a 2.5 either with your record of skipping class and spending minimal effort studying outside of class.</p>
<p>Sorry to have to be frank. But either shape up, or the probation process at UIUC will ship you out within a year.</p>
<p>No, calculus 3 is not a gen ed course. It is, in fact, one of the core tenets underlying engineering, and it will come up a lot as an ME, as will calculus 1 and 2, so for your sake, I hope you have a solid grasp of both of those classes that I assume you were able to skip and that you somehow can still make heads and tails of calculus 3 despite clearly not giving a crap.</p>
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<p>Grow up. That’s what you do. Start acting like an adult. When I was at UIUC, I had plenty of friends just like you early on. Most didn’t make it. You skipped calculus 1 and 2, so I assume that means you AP’ed out of them, which means there is a strong chance you just breezed through high school without having to try all that hard and now that habit is hard to break in college. I had that same problem initially, but you just have to grow up and take some responsibility for yourself.</p>
<p>I’ve been in your shoes. The hole gets deep. Stay on the path you’re on and you’ll be a business major before you know it.</p>
<p>You have to go to class. You have to do problem sets. You have to go your instructor’s office hours if you don’t FULLY grasp what you’re doing. There’s just no way around this.</p>
<p>OP, you already know what to do, you even say so: I’m “not studying as much as I should be”. You should also be attending all your classes.</p>
<p>I would also say that, as the prior poster says, math is a basic tenet of engineering. If you don’t understand that, then I question whether you know what you will really be getting into in an engineering program. </p>
<p>Also, most colleges make it a little easier in the first semester freshman year to help ease that transition from high school. If a 2.5 is the best you can do at this point, it doesn’t predict a good future for you in engineering unless there are big changes.</p>
<p>Make a commitment to attend every class and do every homework problem. Anything else is disrespectful of your parents and the Illinois taxpayers and alumni supporting you.</p>
<p>Intellectual arrogance, the idea that everything has to be “interesting” to you, does not belong in engineering. Fix your attitude and you will fix your grades.</p>
<p>Can you guys give me tips on how I can fix my attitude over winter break?</p>
<p>Every one of you are 100% right and the truth hurts. I’m not mature enough to handle college yet and it shows.</p>
<p>I plan on eventually cutting out the websites/forums that I waste time on by the end of winter break so I can go into next semester with one of my major bad habits taken care of. I’m going to start waking up at 6am and making my day more productive, but other than starting to go to the gym again I’m not sure what I can do (again, this is for winter break). I think the best thing I can do is get a job and realize how easy I have it, as well as build some discipline. I can probably get a job working maintenance at my dad’s high school.</p>
<p>Can I get tips on things that I can do over break to help me man the **** up and start being an adult?</p>
<p>Again, thanks to everyone for the criticism, I needed it.</p>
<p>This seems to happen more often than you think. </p>
<p>I think you should take a leave. Period. You are wasting your time and your money while digging a hole. This is not going to get better under the current circumstances. Doubling down by doing another semester when you can’t even figure out why you messed up this one is just plain dumb. </p>
<p>Go home, get a job pumping gas or flipping burgers, or even tutoring calculus. Think about it. Try to get some psychological counseling. What’s keeping you from being motivated. Figure out what you really want to be doing. </p>
<p>In the future, should you find the motivation return. If not, don’t.</p>
<p>What you’re going through is completely understandable. No one’s telling you not to sleep in and sleeping in is GOOD! I’ve been there. Once you break that habit and go to class, the rest is actually pretty easy. You can do well in school AND party of surf or whatever you do in your newly found free time.</p>
<p>Read the excerpt from Cal Newport’s (Dartmouth UG, MIT PhD, current Georgetown prof) book below and then once you’re convinced that he’s not blowing smoke, buy it and read it over Christmas break. Your life will be changed IF YOU DO WHAT HE RECOMMENDS. If not, follow ClassicRockerDad’s advice. It won’t fix itself.</p>
<p>Thanks eyemgh, I have that book in my amazon cart and was planning on ordering it when I got back home actually.</p>
<p>I appreciate the harsh criticism but the constant “leave school and work at McDonalds” is really scaring me. Is there really no hope in figuring myself out over winter break?</p>
<p>And thanks again eyemgh, I appreciate the optimism</p>
<p>Hey OP, I am a current senior at UIUC and so if you want some help on campus, you can always reach me. In terms of what to say to you, I have to side with what everyone is saying. There is a huge lack in immaturity on your end. You are wasting your money going to school if you are barely going to put an effort in like that, and UIUC isn’t cheap as you know. I am sure your parents will give you a bit of a thrashing when they hear about your results, but here is some advice if you are determined to remain at school:</p>
<p>1) Let go of any idea that people care whether you succeed at school. They don’t really, especially if you don’t care enough to go to class and do the homework. You will fail if nothing changes.</p>
<p>2) Figure out what is important to you. Do you want a good career? Do you want opportunities? Do you want to be something special? Based on your efforts currently, you don’t care to have any of these. If you change your mind, you need to make a much better effort than you are. People I know struggle to get jobs/internships with a 3.0 GPA. It only gets harder the lower the GPA you have.</p>
<p>3) Manage your time well and make a schedule you stick to. Make time for your work and study, make time for some fun and exercise and just stick to it. It is trivial to do if you are honest to yourself.</p>
<p>4) Spend time with friends that are motivated so you can help gain at least some enthusiasm for doing well. Even if you don’t like the particular subject, the goal should be just to do well in general. Try to adopt this mindset and you will be okay.</p>
<p>5) Listen to the smart people on here that have been through this before. Listen to yourself, too. If you don’t think you can find motivation, maybe don’t come to school next semester. Wait until you have a reason to be here.</p>
<p>You would be surprised how much motivation comes from a year of manual labor and how much another year of maturity would do for you - it,s not a bad idea.</p>
<p>To succeed in college, here is a version of the advice I give all students based on what worked for me:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Exercise - Keeping yourself healthy and in shape is paramount. It is best to have a regularly scheduled, quick workout routine, like joining a 6:30 am crossfit group.</p></li>
<li><p>Show up and sit toward the front - Both attendance and seating choice correlate with better grades, so why not?</p></li>
<li><p>Work ahead - When you attend lecture and you already read the chapter, you can understand the subject and participate actively in the class.</p></li>
<li><p>Remove distractions - Concentrate on one thing at a time and work until completion. I would stay on campus after classes and work in a reserved room in the library. No phone, no internet while you are working.</p></li>
<li><p>Stick to a bedtime - Have extra work? You will be more efficient waking up at 3 am than trying to stay up until 3 am.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Best of luck, and let us know what you decide and how you are doing.</p>
<p>All the advice you’re being given here is from a bunch of random folks on the internet who you don’t know. Take it all, including mine, with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>I don’t believe anyone here has said there’s no hope. How could they. They don’t know you. What we are all saying though is that if you aren’t proactive, nothing will magically change on its own. If that is indeed the case, you could be wasting your time.</p>
<p>The things you’ll find in Newport’s book are very much in line with what Magnetron is saying. It is a distillation of the commonalities in study habits of Ivy League Phi Beta Kappa inductees, written in a fun to read, easily accessible way. Here’s the nutshell: 1) there’s more time to study than you think. You just have to find it and stick with it. 2) When you do, go all in, no radio, no internet, no trips to the bathroom, full on HAM while you are studying. This seems brutal, but the secret is breaking it into small chunks (20-50 minutes, what ever you can handle) and using a timer. Use it then to time your 5-10 minute break between sessions. This is when you check Facebook, get a drink, etc.</p>
<p>I’ve been on this forum for a while. I know most of the personalities of those who’ve given you advice. I think what they are all saying is that it’s now in your hands. You’ll be fine if you make good decisions. If not, you won’t. You’re at the crossroad. Now all you have to do is decide which way you go.</p>
<p>Sure there’s hope for you to turn around your attitude over winter break. It isn’t going to be easy, but it’s not impossible. I think the number one thing is to realize that by ****ing away a semester, you basically just wasted $8,377 in whoever’s money paid for your school (yours, your parents’, the taxpayers’). That’s only in tuition. Room and board is probably another 40% of that and fees get dumped further on top of that. I assume it isn’t your money that you just wasted, though, or you likely wouldn’t be in this situation.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is really any set advice that anyone here can give you to help you fix this. The ball is entirely in your court. Whether you have the force of will to turn it around or not is likely the deciding factor. You may try getting yourself into a more academic frame of mind simply by picking a subject over the break and self-studying, e.g. all the part of your Calculus 3 course that you missed/skipped. If you can force yourself to go back through that when you have absolutely nothing on the line in the 3 or 4 weeks over break, you can certainly get yourself to focus when you have grades and money on the line later.</p>
<p>When you get back to campus, find yourself a study group for your classes. Working in a group will help give you someone closer to you than the professor that will hold you semi-accountable. If your group has meetings and you show up unprepared or skip entirely, they probably aren’t going to be pleased, and if you actually befriend these people, you will probably feel guilty as well. This is all in addition to the fact that working in a group usually helps each group member get a better grasp of the material anyway when done properly.</p>
<p>Last, UIUC obviously has a massive party and social atmosphere in addition to the high-powered academics. Don’t get too sucked into the party scene. Don’t get me wrong, I partied plenty when I was there, but you have to know when you have time and when you don’t and have the willpower to make that decision. Until you build up that willpower and the associated time management skills, it may be best to avoid it entirely, or at least as much as possible. For what its worth, by the last three years of my undergraduate studies, I probably went out on the town 2 or 3 nights a week depending on work load and over my 4 years I only missed 1 home football game and 2 home basketball games and still managed to graduate in MechSE with a decent (not amazing) GPA.</p>
<p>It can be done, you just have to develop the skills to balance it all, and that starts with making sure you have yourself convinced that you really do want to be an engineer and you aren’t just studying it for the money or other silly reasons.</p>
<p>Of course there is hope, but you’re taking a huge risk in coming back if you genuinely don’t have it figured out. Perhaps the book eyemgh is suggesting will magically solve your problem, but it might not. </p>
<p>By taking a leave you stop the clock. By considering alternative directions in your life, you compare and contrast options. By seeking professional counseling you have someone to help you figure out what’s holding you back while the clock is stopped. </p>
<p>I wasn’t trying to be harsh, I’m just looking at a bigger picture. If you come back and don’t succeed in changing, you’re probably done.</p>
<p>^CRD is right. You better find the magic to make something work in the 3 weeks of winter break (that you didn’t find all semester) or you are going to dig a huge hole. You need time to mature. Hell, I joined the Navy before college to give myself some time to mature. Some people just need it. School is really important, you cannot coast through engineering like other majors. This requires your dedication. No one on here can tell make you not be a slacker again next semester. You can either suck it up and realize how important this is, or not. Four years of tough work is really not a lot when you consider the opportunities it provides for the rest of your life. Good luck.</p>
<p>CRD and Chucktown are right. That book is awesome ONLY if you decide to play along.</p>
<p>There is no magic. Period.</p>
<p>If it’s any solace though, Cal Newport was getting Bs and Cs as a Freshman at Dartmouth and made all As after, getting a PhD position at MIT. He just decided to get into the game.</p>
<p>I did horribly the first time I went to college. I ended with a .44 gpa…it was bad (I just quit going to class during a couple semesters and got WFs in the classes). I returned 12 years later, no smarter, and with far more on my plate (single mom, work, and far less sympathy from others for “needing to study”). I just graduated with my AA yesterday and will be attending UF in the spring. The ONLY changes I made were making sure I went to all my classes and doing all the work. I didn’t graduate with honors or anything, but I did bring that .44 (.66 with grade forgiveness) up to a 2.39 overall and a 3.12 in the course work done since returning.</p>
<p>I think another important point to consider is active involvement in your academics. Perhaps you could try participating more actively in class, going to office hours regularly and developing a good/name relationship with your prof Lastly, you might want to take the initiative and start or lead a study group in some or all of your courses. The above activities will not only engage you in your learning, but will also give you the sense that someone is indirectly monitoring your academic performance. When you know someone or some people are aware of your performance, you will feel ashamed to slack off or fail a course.</p>
<p>Now, do not mistake this advice with studying for people’s sake … This is just an example of one way in which you could motivate yourself.</p>