I suck at college....i don't know what happened?

I used to be a 3.8-4.0 student.

I got a 4.0 freshman year; but it went all downhill after freshman year. I was in honors courses, the best “business program”, and now I don’t know how to pick it back up. I can’t seem to pass any of my classes anymore, and if i do its with a C or a low B.

After freshman year, i just didn’t see any point in college. But now, i’m trying to change things. I went from a 4.0 to a 2.8 real quick. And the lazy mentality grew on me quick. I can’t seem to get myself to stay awake to study for exams, and if i fail, I just say screw it for the whole semester and just decide to op for a course retake.

I should be an “incoming senior” but since I’ve failed my junior year, i’m at a junior status. Taking summer classes this semester and I’ve done massive improvements, but i need to get myself back up. I forgot (don’t even know how this is possible) how to study/succeed in college?

I guess what i’m asking is, any study tips/motivation tips… what keeps you going?
Any help…or suggestions?

You very likely have not forgotten how to succeed, otherwise the first year would have likely been a wash too. Sounds like you experienced a slump that can happen after the newness and excitement of starting college kind of wears off and the reality of the hard work involved and many other things about adulthood start to sink in. You had a big dip, now it’s time to learn from that and turn it around. Sounds like you’ve already started to do that. There is no magic to continuing on your rebound. Take one day at a time. Get up every morning and do what you can to keep up. Set goals. Utize your campus academic support services. Do your best. Keep at it day in and day out.

Motivation to succeed in school can stem from wanting to achieve goals. Graduation is a goal, but shorter term goals could be to organize your schedule, set a side time to study every day, finding a tutor or using other campus services, going to office hours and chatting with a professor. Try to get study groups together. Don’t give up if you get a bad grade. Get involved in the process. Each small step will build your confidence bit by bit. If you can’t get motivated or don’t see the point of going to college you should seek counseling to discuss this further.

I would start by going to the counseling center on campus and asking for help.

If you haven’t already done so, you may want too get a thorough medical physical exam. You may have an underlying illnesses that may be causing you to lose focus and feel fatigued.

Go see your general practitioner and see about trying an anti-depressant. B’s and C’s…get degrees. So do C’s and D’s. Commit to getting the degree. If you want to do something completely different after that…fine. But try to finish what you’ve started so you have something to fall back on.

It sounds like you suffered burnout, and now you are starting the process of recovering and getting back on track. You might never become the 4.0 student again that you once were – or maybe you will – but what you will gain through the recovery process is inner strength that will carry you through any hardships for the rest of your life.

Forgive yourself for going off track for awhile. It happens to so many people sooner or later. It is not a reflection on your abilities at all.

I recommend trying to find joy again, both related to your major and in other areas. Have you done an internship yet to get experience related to your major, to bring it to life so you can see where it could lead? Are you involved in any sports or fitness activities? Do you take time for creative expression with art or music or photography? Are you building and maintaining any relationships on campus? Are you involved in any clubs or volunteer activities? Do you spend time in nature soaking up the beauty? Are you taking care of yourself and your living area?

It is possible that there are many neglected areas in your life, and not just the academics. Try to make progress across the board, and achieve mini goals in various areas to gain the satisfaction of accomplishment.

I agree that you should see a doctor and have a complete physical done, to ensure you are not anemic or have some other issue that can cause fatigue or mental fogginess etc.

You could also take some career aptitude tests relating to skills and interests, and find out if your major is just a terrible fit, and if that has contributed to your loss of interest. While it may be too late to entirely change majors to graduate as soon as possible, if it turns out that another field would suit you better, you might be able to fit in an elective or an activity that excites you enough to get you interested in applying yourself to academics again, and you could plan how to work toward a suitable career.

Try to visualize how you would want your life to be, and how you want YOU to be as a person, and then start trying to live into that picture. Imagine a mastermind group of people you most admire – which can be anyone who ever lived now or in the past – and think of what advice they would give you, and how they might approach each day and each task at hand. Consider what you admire most about them and can try to emulate.

Reaching goals starts with a vision in your mind. When you say you “didn’t see any point in college,” it seems like you lost that vision of the possibilities. Picture yourself graduating by a certain date. Picture yourself succeeding in each class, and on each assignment and test. Make a list of the benefits people get from college – a break before entering the “real world” and having to work full-time; a chance to meet highly educated professors and students who will go on to become leaders across the country; a time to explore interests through clubs and activities and attend special events and performances on campus; an opportunity to get a degree which statistically leads to higher income throughout life; an opportunity to soak up knowledge and learn new skills and viewpoints, etc.

Start a gratitude journal, and every day write down three things that you are grateful for. That will help you focus on the joy and beauty of living, and how fortunate you are. Place things around your living area that represent symbolically achieving your goals, including making high grades and graduating.

Try to build in accountability for getting classwork done, possibly by working on some of it with other students, or asking someone to follow up with you on your progress. Give yourself rewards for turning in homework on time and studying.

You have the capacity within yourself to pull through and reach better days in your life. Look at this as a winter season, and the next one will be spring for you. Keep at it, and expect better results soon.

You need to change how you study. What you are doing is not working anymore. It got you through HS and freshman year.

  1. GO TO CLASS, BUY THE BOOK, READ THE CHAPTERS, AND DO THE HOMEWORK!

  2. 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?”

  3. 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.

  4. Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.

  5. 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.

  6. Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)

  7. If things still are not going well, get a tutor.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. At first, don’t spend too much time other things rather than school work. (sports, partying, rushing fraternities/sororities, video gaming etc etc)

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. 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).

  16. 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.

  17. 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.