<p>If you are a freshman, you should not assume that everyone is doing better than you. Even at top colleges, freshmen struggle. Perhaps the people “you” know are doing better than you, but in reality freshmen performance is generally not that great. Like here, it’s about a 3.0-3.1. Consider this vs. the inflated graduating GPA of roughly 3.4. This means that many people improve their GPAs significantly. Yes, a portion of this may be the pre-med/STEM attrition after freshmen year, however, 3.0-3.1 is low for a class with roughly a 1400 SAT average. This means that many are struggling in humanities and social science courses also. Technically, if the profs. are grading right, most HS students won’t be prepared for it because in HS, especially in APs, we were told to conform to certain styles/approaches to writing that would often result in papers that are only good on the surface and indeed include plenty of unnecessary “fluff” (college teachers accept a variety of writing styles, but generally like precision when discussing issues, as opposed to dancing around them). History/Social Science courses are moreso based upon just essay format exams (whereas most HS students may be used to having regular exams that could save them if they weren’t great at essays, b/c they know how to test). And then the learning in Social Science and Humanities is but so textbook based. Most of the knowledge you need to master the class comes from lectures and personal research either on your own or via sources provided by your prof. Example, Arab-Israeli Conflict here gives you a CD w/1000+ page of documents on top of the many books you must read to supplement lectures, but the class has no HW or non-exam essays, so you have to pace yourself vigorously or the 2 exams will be a disaster. They surprisingly gave real grades, plenty got C,D, F grades on the midterm. I was surprised since this is Emory and all, and since the class was actually very large b/c of the popularity. But then again, grading w/the social science profs. I’ve had has not been as lenient as one would be led to believe (you know at top private schools, the grading is supposed to be easy, especially in these depts), but that could be just my luck (I actually performed fairly well in them), but I really don’t regret it, these profs. gave the most feedback which actually helped w/future endeavors and interests. Tougher graders or those w/higher standards tend to have the highest level of engagement with students. Again I don’t regret that, I really regret not working harder. I’ll admit that I got B grades (B/B+, not a B-) in 2-3 of these courses because I did not work hard enough to achieve the standards that the prof. expected. 1 of them I worked hard and got B+, but the other two Bs. One was grade inflated, I know, because I didn’t do 2 of the small weighted assignments, and I don’t think my research paper which was 50% of my grade, was good. And I had a B+ on the midterm essay. Given that, didn’t even deserve a B. I thank them, but I’m kind of disappointed because they were actually good professors that cared and gave lots of feedback and kind of deserved more from me and many other students in there (surprising a B, even if inflated, was probably the norm in that class, and B in the other was actually high as many people were struggling a lot).<br>
As you can tell, I’ve also struggle in some classes here despite me being a match (well, not really, I know my HS in general was not as great as my peers’. The AP courses were very rigorous, but the environment was not but so conducive to success beyond AP exams or the midterms associated with the course). Part of it because I choose more challenging profs. and classes than most, and much of it b/c of the pre-med weedouts (I’m a non-premed chem./bio major so I had to deal with the boring, non-intellectually stimulating, w/exception of orgo. premed courses) I had to go through that had those darned multiple choice exams. I now choose classes where such environments and exams are avoided, because I honestly like to think, and tend to analyze a lot, which screws me over on the memorization based MC exams. My grades in science classes have recovered because of it. I even held my own in a grad. level bio-organic course. For me it was my sophomore year where I struggled (lots of things going on in family, very heavy courseload even for a science major, roommate issues) tremendously and my GPA took a huge hit (it was okay freshmen year, close to 3.5.) And no, I didn’t fail any courses, but they were not all As and Bs either (my GPA dropped sharply to like 3.1?). The classes were too hard to manage given what I was experiencing at the time. I really had almost given up. However, I then enjoyed junior year (classes no easier) for the most part and recovered some of my GPA motivation at least (and my GPA stabilized before it went to the point of no return). And I figured out that I had a passion for research and mentoring students in organic chemistry and biology, and I am very pleased. I plan to go out of Emory with a bang now that I am taking all of the courses and profs. that I know that I’ll enjoy (again, I keep it rigorous, but I find that as long as I like the course content or prof., I do well). I just thought I would share my story, and let you know that as a freshmen you are certainly not alone. You’re actually fortunate to go through the transition as a freshmen as you will likely go up from it. I had to go through a demoralizing sophomore slump (more of a sophomore slam actually), but I still am in a decent position. Hang in there.<br>
I can advise you to figure which learning/testing styles you like best and try to probe which professors best cater to this. I don’t know how other schools are, but at Emory, throughout 1 course with several sections, there are lots of differences in pedagogy depending upon the prof. There is no standardization of course content, or how it is conveyed (this even applies to introductory courses here, there are profound differences in approach to teaching across profs). So I recommend you figure out what best fits you and choosing courses that way. Don’t simply choose blindly or based upon “perceived” ease. I see so many people get screwed by the latter because the teacher is a) bad, or b) simply does not fit their style of learning. They, therefore don’t get anywhere close to the grade they anticipated. Perhaps a little “add/drop/swap tour” festival will help you. Tour profs. in these types of courses and check out the lecturing/pedagogy, and make a decision. </p>
<p>Pass/Fail is also an option: However, it often cannot be used toward major courses. Or at least that’s how it works here. Also, even with GERs, it can only be used for about 1 course.</p>