I’m a biology major pre-pharmacy and I did really pretty bad last semester. I am getting ready to go into my sophomore I ended up getting C’s and a D in gen chem. Which I am going to have to retake. I really overloaded last semester and had some stuff that happened in my personal life causing me to have many issues and not do as well as I liked. It was just a bad semester in general. I wasn’t sleeping or eating and trying to study on top of that did not help much. The main class I had trouble in was chemistry. For next semester I set up my schedule at only 12 credit hours so I only have mostly 2 classes a day; which will leave a lot of time for studying. I also need to come up with better time management for studying when I have to study for more than one thing at a time. Any advice is really appreciated thank you.
Yup, I can relate. But honestly, you still have three years to make it up, and based on all that you’ve said here it sounds like you’re on the right track. Also, you said you had a bad spring semester, but how was your fall semester? What’s your GPA right now?
I for one am terrible at time management so unfortunately I don’t know how much help I can offer, but there are a couple of things that worked for me. Mainly, I discovered that I like studying in the library because I’m surrounded by other people who are working hard, and it makes me more likely to give in to positive peer pressure, so to speak. I like to work in an open space where people can see my laptop screen, because I don’t want anyone to judge me for wasting time on social media. Doubly so if I’m using the library computers. Maybe that’s just a personal preference, I don’t know, but I hope it helps!
Try some of the academics support services at your college. Most schools have them and people who work there specialize in helping students learn the skills for success such as organization, time management, effective sudy skills, etc.
Fall semester I did ok, I got 2 C’s and my GPA was a 2.8. Spring semester it went down to a 2.3 and thats what I am at now.
- Get a tutor for chemistry.
- Take advantage of office hours and any help offered by the department.
- See if you can find others in your class to study with.
- Develop a schedule and stick to it. Leave time to eat, exercise, and sleep. But stick to your class, tutor meeting, & study schedules.
- If you know you have a bad habit, figure out how to break it. Do you hang out after dinner in the dorm when you meant to go to the library? Take your stuff to dinner to avoid going back to the dorm. Too much internet time? Turn off access, and reward yourself with a timed break when you finish an assignment. Oversleep & and classes? Get a better alarm.
@moso13 alright now this might actually not apply, a lot of university have this program in where if you retake a class they drop your previous grade altogether, my brother did that twice. ask your university, life saving if your gpa effects your post grad path.
A pharmacy major is chemistry intensive, so it is imperative that you master your basic chemistry courses. Most Pharmacy courses have some component of chemistry. Examples from one pharmacy school curriculum:
Clinical Biochemistry
Fundamentals of Medicinal Chemistry
Medicinal Chemistry I
Medicinal Chemistry II
Structure and Function of Nucleotides: Basis for Therapy
etc.
I agree that you should seek out a tutor for chemistry and work hard at mastering the subject. BTW, some Pharmacy programs does not allow grade forgiveness, “which means that grades for multiple attempts for the same course number will be averaged together for that course.”
Could you name a few of the universities that does this? Does the first attempt show up on the student transcript or is it completely wiped off, with no history that the student had multiple attempts for a specific course?
So to do well, consider the following:
-
GO TO CLASS, BUY THE BOOK, READ THE CHAPTERS, AND DO THE HOMEWORK!
-
Go to Professor’s office hours 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?”
-
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.
-
Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.
-
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.
-
Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)
-
If things still are not going well, get a tutor.
-
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.
-
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.
-
For your tests, 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.
-
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.
-
At first, don’t spend too much time other things rather than school work. (sports, partying, rushing fraternities/sororities, video gaming etc etc)
-
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.
-
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.
-
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).
-
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.
-
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.
How can you get a D in general chemistry?
^ By not sleeping or eating, apparently.
It’s great that you have created a schedule that will give you ample time to study. Now you want to think about HOW you will study. If you are like most students, you are likely using ineffective study strategies that feel very comfortable and effective to you. For example, when I was in school I was convinced that rereading the textbook a million times (and highlighting nearly every word!) would ensure that I knew everything. I was a pretty good student and oftentimes I would do very well on a test despite my terrible study techniques, which reinforced my belief that rereading was the best way to study. Of course, in addition to being ineffective, my strategy took an enormous amount of time! If you ask any student, he or she is likely to have some variation of “looking over notes, rereading, highlighting, retyping notes, etc.” and each will say that they have developed the best way to study for themselves because they typically did well in high school using that technique.
Cognitive psychologists have spent their careers experimentally testing various study techniques and have a very good idea about which techniques are useful and which aren’t. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t taught how to study and often end up relying on ineffective techniques. Check out this Scientific American article, which identifies scientifically supported study techniques and those that are not so great: https://teachingacademy.wisc.edu/what-are-the-best-ways-to-study-read-this-review-from-scientific-american/ (pdf available on this page) Sometimes people claim that they are different and that rereading really works for them (even if the research fails to back up that technique). I would counter that there are BETTER and MORE EFFICIENT ways to study–why not use those techniques rather than techniques that can let you down or take too much time?
I would bet that you went into your first year like most first year students–relying on the studying techniques you used in high school. When you got your first bad grade, you likely did even more of what you typically did (e.g., more time rereading/ “going over your notes”). However, using an ineffective technique for more hours will not lead to mastery. Take a chance and give these proven techniques a try and I am sure you will see a dramatic increase in your grades.
Here are more studying resources:
http://www.learningscientists.org/blog?category=For+Students (A blog with lots of helpful studying advice)
Video series: http://www.samford.edu/departments/academic-success-center/how-to-study
Good luck!