<p>I overestimated my abilities during the fall quarter and failed to achieve my expectations. I was under the mentality that I had to do so many other things besides my classes in order to get a good job after college. I had two jobs as well as working in a research lab along with multiple other club commitments and I thought I could handle it all and still do well in my classes. My days however were extremely stressful and I felt like I was never having fun or had any true moment to relax.</p>
<p>As a result of my poor grades, some of my extra-curricular activities were dropped, most importantly my research.</p>
<p>This quarter though is the first time I don't want to go back to school. I truly did the best with what I could during last quarter but still failed to achieve even half of what I wanted. I feel like just dropping everything now and focusing on my classes.</p>
<p>tl;dr: How to rebound after big failures in life? How to deal with failing after doing one's best? Will it be hard to get a job after college if I don't get >3.5 gpa+2 internships+research experience+good professor recommendations?</p>
<p>Everyone has their breaking point. Hopefully you learned what your limits are, and that will help you be more realistic with the rest of your years. You will never have the time, much less the nerves, to do everything you set out to do. But that’s fine; as long as you do well it’s good enough.</p>
<p>In your case, it doesn’t sound like you really harmed your career in any significant way. Just pick up and move on and you’ll be fine. Bad grades can happen, and as long as you can show that you’re improving, that will make up for a bad semester.</p>
<p>Try to figure out what things are most important to you, and pursue those… forget about the rest. Its true, you’ll never have enough time to do everything you want, so you’ll have to pick the things you want to do the most and keep on them. </p>
<p>For example, I neglected basically all of my clubs, including honor societies, and dramatically lowered the amount of research I did this past semester in favor of looking heavily into graduate programs and keeping up with my classes for the last semester that was going to heavily influence my transcript for grad applications. It sucked to put those things that I enjoy on hold, but it came down to priorities. Next semester, I plan to get back into research and clubs, and spend less time on classes… and no more applications or GRE prep!</p>
<p>Edit: If you’re trying to get a job out of undergrad, I think you can go easy on the research, unless that’s what you really like. Do internships during the summer to get experience and make some cash. Good professor recommendations always help, but if you’re going into industry, past employer recommendations should do the trick for you. And try to have your GPA greater than 3.2 or 3.3. A 3.0 is sometimes considered minimum, but by no means do you need to have greater than 3.5 to get a job.</p>
<p>For most jobs you do not need professor recommendations or research experience. Having a 3.0 GPA and MAYBE ONE internship will get you most jobs. I feel that a >3.5 and two internships you will be golden. Your interviews will determine if you land the job, not if you have research or professor recommendations typically.</p>
<p>Focus on your classes first and foremost. Everything else is secondary.</p>