After getting a 3.00 GPA after my first year at my local community, I had made it a promise that I was going to try my absolute heart out this semester and hopefully it’ll be enough to transfer to the school I want to go to. I am 7 weeks into my semester, and I blew my chances of even succeeding in community college.
I had all this planned out, and I was so excited about this semester. I retook Calc 1, I am taking Physics I and a few online classes. I was so pumped. I just can’t do good. I took a calc test today, and that was honestly the final straw. I felt so good beforehand, I studyed so much and so hard, and I even felt confident taking it. But after handing in my exam, and going through the problems in my head and what I wrote down, I have done what I have always done and screwed it up. Now I feel like garbage. Same goes with Physics, my prof hands out a quiz everyother week and I only got a 90 in one, the rest are in the 50s and I gotta midterm this Tuesday and now I realize I have no chance.
I am starting to realize college probably is not for me. I love the major I am in (Computer Science), but I never realized you had to be Steve Jobs genius to succeed even at the community college level (I know that is exaggerating but still), I feel so dumb after every single test/quiz. I am considering finishing out the semester and not coming back, I know I won’t do good and this semester has been a joke. I can’t take the stress, I have never been this stressed before. Should I drop out or keep suffering through?
I’m sorry you are stressing out and feeling so down on yourself. The classes you are taking are extremely hard subjects, most people struggle with them. I know your dream is college so I wouldn’t give up just yet. Are there tutoring services available at your community college?
@AmyBeth68 yes there is, I have been using them but not quite often. I guess I have to use them more often
It just sucks, not being able to pass calculus AGAIN none the less.
To address the Steve Jobs thing, he was really more of a suave businessman/talker than an engineer. It was all Steve Wozniak (The Woz) that actually made the products Apple sold in its early days. Steve didn’t even finish college So maybe you want to be like The Woz?
Computer science is often a difficult major. I had to take CS courses as part of my degree and I rarely did as well as I would have liked. In one of my classes, 50% on the midterm somehow became a C+ grade (that happens to be the score I got). It is a tough major and can be made even more difficult if you are placed in classes with savant-type students. I really enjoyed coding, but CS really has to do more with math and whatnot. There are many classes where you won’t even code at all. I think for me, I made an assumption that CS = programmer whereas it’s not really that simple. I think that’s why I went with a major that let me code a bit, but also let me explore another passion of mine (language structure).
Look into Applied Computer science, such as Information science, MIS…
Don’t go over 13-14 credits to focus on the classes you are taking , go to office to discuss what’s not clear from the exercises and the lecture, join a study group, go to the review session.
It’s not necessary to be pumped up. You can feel stressed out, rather than overconfident!
What you need is to know the material enough that you can apply it to unknown problems.
What classes did you have in high shool before those (ie., did you take any physics class and precalculus? What grade did you get)? Could your difficulties be explained by your background, a HS that didn’t prepare you well, or your not taking the pre-reqs?
Have you spoken to your academic advisor? Does your college offer tutoring services or other academic support services? Khan Academy is great, and free. Know that you are not the only student struggling.
Keep in mind that grades aren’t everything. If you’re concerned about employment, know that employers know that students getting lower grades in harder subjects generally try just as hard if not harder than students taking easy classes. If you were admitted into the college, that means a committee of qualified academics deemed you more than capable of handling that colleges rigor. Don’t give up yet and try to reach out to different study groups, tutors, online resources and other sources for help. The greater the challenge the greater the reward that will follow !
So maybe you want to be like The Woz? 