I was stupid

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Okay, I am junior currently. I hate my life. I basically committed gpa suicide in less than 1 quarter of high school.</p>

<p>I decided to take
AP Physics B
AP Chem
AP Bio
AP Lang
AP USH
Excelsior Precalculus</p>

<p>Worst decision of my life to be honest. I went from being an A student sophmore year to C's and D's and I don't even care about school anymore. I can't drop any classes because it is way too late into the year. Everyday, I can't even get through the day without wanting to punch someone in the face because I cannot deal with going from double period AP Bio->Precalc->AP Chem->double period AP Physics. Anyone have any tips? The problem isn't even the tests. I am getting 80s and 90s, but I cannot handle the amount of homework combined. I have a terrible work ethic. I have no motivation to do anything. One time, I just sat and stared at my homework for 2 hours and didn't even write down a word.</p>

2

<p>Are you planning on attending college? If so, you should find ways to improve your studying and work ethic (that’s basically the purpose of AP classes, to sort of bridge the gap between HS and college). Last year I took 8.012 at MIT (which is like Physics C mechanics but harder) and also had those moments when I spent an hour on a problem and got nowhere. Generally when I’m in a position like that, I realize that I don’t really understand the material, and go back to the beginning of the chapter/section and read it.</p>

3

<p>The problem isn’t even about not understanding the material. I have no motivation to do anything anymore. My teachers gave me a grade of incomplete meaning I had two weeks to make up all my assignments and basically get your **** together. I still did not complete any assignments till the last night and I didn’t even complete them all. I can’t bring myself to do anything anymore.</p>

4

<p>Okay, it sounds like you have had really bad advising and decided to push yourself too hard, probably stemming from competitiveness of your school/social pressure to overload yourself. Either nobody gave you better advice or you ignored them, but you need to find a way out if there is any hope of you going to college. Go see your counseling and advising ASAP. If you attend the kind of school that would pressure you to take a courseload like this, they problably have dealt with similar problems before. You are an excellent, smart, student and they want to help you succeed. Explain your situationn and they might be able to work out a solution.</p>

5

<p>That’s a really depressing schedule</p>

6

<p>Tell your teacher about your situation. Some teachers are really nice and they might understand and let you turn in your work late. For me, a lot of my teachers could care less if you turn in your assignment a month later, especially if you do well on tests. But if you were to do bad on the tests, then they wouldn’t be lenient. it sounds like you could easily get straight A’s, but… It seems like it’s too late to fix up your act now. Doesn’t semester grades end soon? Well… Try to negotiate with your teacher about the missing assignments or whatever. And try harder next semester!</p>

7

<p>My junior year schedule was similar:
AP Chem
AP Bio
AP Calc BC
AP English Language
AP USH
Honors Spanish</p>

<p>It sucked hard, but I got through it and grew from the challenge-- after that year, even Stanford couldn’t knock me in the gut as hard as high school had. I considered dropping a class in the first few weeks, cause it was brutal. But eventually I got into a routine, and while the workload steadily increased throughout the year, I could adapt to it. </p>

<p>Spanish I did in my twenty minute advisory period each morning, so there was no way I could stare at that homework for two hours since I had only 20 minutes to do a sheet or two of translations. I didn’t do the bio reading until the night before the tests, when I would read all the chapters being tested (this took hours, and sucked). Luckily my chem teacher allotted more time for labs than necessary, so if my partner and I were on our game we could start HW in the last fifteen minutes of class. </p>

<p>I would do my history reading immediately upon getting home from school, no exceptions (well, after a quick snack). It took an hour, sometimes more, but on an average day I was done with 1/3 of my HW before 5PM. My reward for finishing would be plopping on the couch for a half hour of Simpsons. I would then squeeze as much HW as I could between that and dinner. Most days I could at least finish math and start on English. After dinner I might watch a sports game or TV drama, and then resume my HW at 9 PM knowing I had 1.5 to 2.5 hours left. All told it’s about 4-6 hours of HW per night, but when broken down it never got consistently bad. </p>

<p>My English class had 15-20 hours of HW weekly. So that year was when I first started doing HW on Friday and Saturday for assignments due the next week. There was simply no other way for me. If I could finish my English homework by Saturday night, then perhaps I could even get ahead on my history and math HW since I could devote all of Sunday to those. </p>

<p>I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to get straight As, which wasn’t a problem for me because I was a B+ student to that point.</p>

<p>Are you doing HW on Friday and Saturday yet? If not, then start now. Start finding open spaces in your school schedule and regularly completing your easier HW assignments during those spaces. Pick one of your harder subjects (that assigns nightly HW) to always finish as soon as you get home. Embrace your routine. Accept that you probably won’t be getting straight As. Ask for an extension if need be. </p>

<p>You can’t commit 100% to all those classes. Pick 3 to go balls to the wall on, and 3 to skirt by doing the bare minimum on. Adjust as necessary.</p>

8

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</p>

<p>Basically this. Or pick like 1-2. Whatever you feel like.</p>