I need some advice. Right now I have an 85 in Pre-Calculus, a 67% in Gen. Chemistry I, and a 70 in English 111. I am feeling like a huge failure right now, and I’m nervous that I’m going to fail Chemistry as I’m not understanding most of what the instructor is telling me until way later.
This is my first semester and I’m really worried I’m going to fail. I’m working towards a Computer Science degree atm. What are you guys’ thoughts?
There is a steep learning curve for figuring out how to do college. What have you done to try to help yourself do better? Have you sought out resources to help you improve? Some strategies include going to office hours to work with your professor, going to the academic support center, study groups, analyzing and fixing the methods that aren’t working for you, among others. @bopper has a great list of suggestions that she often posts in this section.
You have a little time left to prevent failure but it will take some serious effort and focus on your part.
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 early in the semester 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 tests that you didn’t do well on, 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.
That first semester of chemistry seems to be a weeder class at a lot of colleges, or so I’ve heard from several of my friends whose kids are taking it at various schools. Translation: super ridiculously difficult, with a lot of smart kids struggling to get C’s, or pass. Will your chem class be curved? Have you talked to your professor? Look long and hard at what you have been doing so far to prepare for the tests for this class and come to terms with the fact that you will have to step it up. The 16 steps above are ALL great - exhaust all possibilities, use all resources available to you, even if it seems like too much effort or not your style or inconvenient. The biggest thing at this point is to NOT give up. My D, who is at Cal, saw this happening to students around her the first or second week of school - “I give up” literally came out of one of her classmates mouths. While she was a very high-achieving high schooler, this chem class is kicking her butt. But she has been taught to go down swinging, so she’s grinding her way through. Is it fun? No, but it’s what needs to get done.
Thanks for the help guys. If I do end up getting a D in Chemistry and have to retake it, will I be in any trouble academically? Or can I retake the class and everything will be ok?