Hello everyone. I have been really depressed the last couple of days.
I finished high school in Mexico in May of last year and I moved to the United States in August 2016. As soon as I moved I started taking classes at my local community college. My goal was to either finish my pharmacy pre- requisites or get a Bachelor’s degree in biology and then apply to pharmacy school. I was really determined to make it and I made good grades on my first year. By the end of this summer I already had 36 credit hours and a 3.9 gpa. During that year I only worked maybe 4 days as a server andI had enough time to study because the shifts are around 4-6 hours long at most. But this semester I might have ruined all of my chances of having a good future. I was taking biology 1407 and a classmate that works for walgreens as a pharmacy tech told me that they were hiring people to train them as pharmacy technicians. I got super excited because I thought that would look really good on my resume and when I got hired I specified that I only wanted to do part time. They said that at first they needed me to do customer service before taking me into pharmacy and I agreed. Then I ended up being scheduled for 37-40 hours a week and it was taking all of my study time away from me. I was taking chemistry, biology, art and calculus but I was struggling with calculus. The week I had my midterms I got scheduled 5 days in a row and was too shy to let my manager know that I needed days off to study. I also knew biology was a heavy class but I could easily pass it if I retook it and that way I could focus on passing calculus and not seeing that teacher again. I dropped biology but now I ended up failing the calculus class too. I know for sure that pharmacy school will not even bother looking at my application with an f on it. And now I don’t even think a 4 year university would like to take me with that failed class anymore. I am really depressed because I feel so stupid for making those choices and not being able to pass a class and have been even thinking of just dropping out of school because of that. I need help, or advice on what should I do.
Establish good relations with your advisor at your school and explain the situation. Let the schools you are applying to know that the mark on your transcript is from an extenuating circumstance of working too much and not because you struggled particularly hard with the subject or slacked off.
Also, don’t worry. A lot of people with worse transcripts have gone to great schools. But let this be a cautionary example to really set your boundaries when it comes to work/school balance.
Ask for no more than 12 hours a week in December. If they give you 15, say ok, but if they give you more than 15, say you can’t, and say you’d have to give your 2 weeks’notice because you have finals and being scheduled for 37 hours when youd been told it’d be part time has messed up your study time and grades, and now is the only time left to salvage the semester.
Don’t hesitate to speak up. What do you have to lose, really? If you lose your job at that walgreens you can apply at another one, explaining the 1st one needed you to be full time when you had been hired for part time due to college work.