How will this affect my grad school chances

<p>Excuses and all embarassment aside, I had a bad semester about a year ago and managed to mangle my GPA. I failed a math class for the first time and got a "D" in another pre-req class. After that semester I wanted to give up completely, I lost all motivation in my major and changed majors. After taking classes in my new major, I realized that molecular/microbiology is really my passion and that is what I want to do with the rest of my life. So I switched my major back to molecular bio and I have since signed up to retake the class I got a "D" in. I have come to find out that the math class I failed I actually never really needed in the first place...so I'm not sure if I should retake it as I'm pretty sure its going to show in my transcript as an elective. How big of a deal is it that I failed an elective class, will it kill my chances of grad school? I have better grades in higher level math classes (I just bit off more than I could chew by taking 4 science/math courses all at once and along with personal reasons I had a hard time with the final and it tanked my entire grade and it was too late to withdrawl by then).</p>

<p>won’t be a major problem if it can be explained away and everything else looks fine.</p>