Love my major, failing everything else

Student Lounge College Life
1

I am a full time college student from Texas Tech Uni, first semester of my second year. I am a computer science major, I’ve been coding and doing other stuff for a while now, even before my classes started. I truly enjoy it. I have taken a break from TTU and am at a local community college, because my dad thinks that B’s are not good enough, and he wants to supervise me for this semester to see if I do any better.
Well… I’m failing. Everything but my major. I have an A in my major, because I really enjoy it and actually look forward to learning more, sometimes I will open up the textbook and get lost in it for an hour or two, and remember everything as well!
But my other classes are really beating me up. I’m trying to understand, trying to be motivated, but just a few weeks in and I’ve skipped a few of those classes, I have 0s’ from not turning assignments in, I’ve failed some very basic (according to my professors) homework and tests.
I truly feel as though I’m drowning in three courses, and on top of the world when I’m in my cs class. At this point I feel like I will never catch up in my DiffEq and PhysII classes. I’ve studied as well as I know how, but I’ve lost motivation. Partly because my first grades came back failing, partly because I know these courses are very hard, and last but not least because at this point I’m behind in my classes, both on understanding the coursework and the actual assignments, and I feel as though I will not be able to catch up.

I just need some advice. What can I do to motivate myself to catch up in these courses? I feel as though I’m behind and every day that goes by will just be one more step the class moved while I’m still struggling with the last assignment because I really just don’t get it. It’s even more disheartening when my phys proffessor will write an equation that takes up half the board, then by some witchcraft reduces it and switches everything around.

I go to my math professors office hours every time, but that doesn’t help much since I’m honestly so confused about some of the topics that I’m not sure what I don’t get. My physics professor moves so fast that usually I will have half the notes done when he wipes the board, and I don’t have much of what he wrote, and the textbook doesn’t help too much either.
To be honest my study skills are probably abismal, aswell as my time management skills. I know I need to work on these, but I don’t think that at this point they have a lot to do with my main problem, which is motivation.

Its gotten to the point where I am considering dropping out of college, even though I love my cs class, because 3/4 of my classes seem impossible for me to figure out.

Thanks, and to reiterate, I need advise / stories on how to improve my motivation. I can improve on the rest once I find my purpose again.
Thanks everyone in advance,
Mark

2

What helps a lot of people who aren’t self-motivated in certain classes is to engineer some external motivation. In your case, I’d suggest you get tutors for each of the classes you’re failing, and arrange to meet those tutors 1-2 times per week, every week, for the rest of the term. Because you’re committing to meeting these people regularly, most people find that they’re more likely to do the work regularly as well. And the tutor can also help you get caught up in these classes, so an added bonus.

This is what a lot of people do for exercise - they hire a personal trainer, to provide that external motivation and to ensure that they show up and do all the exercises. Your tutor is your personal trainer. Go to the tutoring center immediately, and if they don’t offer tutors in these particular disciplines, see the departments themselves and ask about tutoring. And if that doesn’t work, contact the local university and hire a grad student in the discipline.

3

You can do more. Have you gone to professor office hours? The tutoring center? Arranged study groups? Today, put everything else on hold and devote yourself to your course work. Go to class, read the book, do the work. Study study study. It will suck for a few months. Then you will realize you are through the worst of it and you will never let yourself get in that position again. When you sign up for college, understand that you have to take stuff you don’t like. Everyone does. It isn’t supposed to be easy. That’s why you EARN your degree.

If you are in the first semester, you have time to salvage your grades. No excuses. You may end up with a bunch of C’s, but the alternative is possibly working at the mall for a long time to come. Good luck!

4

Go to class. Every class. Ask one of your classmates if they got all the notes and if you could copy them. If there is a second section of the same class, see if you can attend that one too. See if there are some tutorials on Khan academy. See if there is a study group forming or ask the TA to form one.

My daughter took a math class this summer. Math is really hard for her. She went to every class. she stayed after class to study with other kids. She worked with the TA, and her sister and boyfriend (good at math) helped her. She hated every minute of it but got an A.

5

Mark, I like @RoaringMice ‘s suggestion. Are you willing to go to the tutoring center at the college?

6

Check out these tips:

  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.

7

You don’t need to take all those math/physics courses to get an employable degree. First, get yourself tested. You might have ADHD/ADD. You might want to drop a couple of classes and lighten your load this semester. Second, try majoring in Information Technology. Almost all programming has nothing to do with math or physics. You don’t have to torture yourself like that. In fact, having a business background is a real asset.

8

If taking notes takes too long, take pictures of the board your phone (you’ll need to sit up close). Take notes as usual once the board is full take the picture. Then DO NOT FORGET TO COPY what’s missing into your notes (and it’ll give you an opportunity to review them). Btw, writing by hand will help you memorize so try that.
Switch to an IQS major like computer applications.

9

coolguy40 had a good idea - you could withdraw from one or two of the classes that you’re failing. At this point in the term, you may lose the money you spent on it (you must, must, must talk to the bursar and financial aid to make sure there aren’t any repercussions to your financial aid for dropping right now), but this would do two things: 1) you can retake the class again next term, and get a tutor from week 1, and 2) lighten your load a bit, so you can focus on the classes that you’re failing, but which you keep. So if you’re in a hole that is so deep that there is no realistic way to dig out of it, shrink the hole by dropping at least one of the classes you’re failing. Retake next term, and use a tutor immediately and often.