<p>Hey guys, I'm in a really tough situation! </p>
<p>So basically I'm taking the worlds worst stats professor and am prob going to end up with wither a D or F in the class. I applied for transfer to UC Merced and as of now have 3.8 GPA I will have completed (without my stats class) exactly 60 UC transferable units. I am a Psych major and have all of my other reqs finished except for this stats class if I withdrawal. </p>
<p>I have tried my hardest in this class, I do not consider myself a slacker, which is why my failure to do well in this class hurts even more. I just cannot seem to connect with the professors way of teaching and her class is brutal. She told us the first day of class that if we are working or taking more than 12 units to drop her class cause her class is alot of work. I am working and taking 16 units this semester and thought she was exaggerating... turns out she wasnt and know i am stuck.. Her exams are worth 80 percent of our grade and the rest of the 20 percent is homework and labs. And i have failed the first two exams.I don't know whether to ride it out and let my other classes suffer or drop the class and hope to still be accepted to UC Merced and take stats over there during the summer. </p>
<p>I understand the risk of getting a W in Stats I am just wondering how much it will affect my chances of getting into UC Merced and if they will allow me to take it over there. (btw i have never recieved a W or anything below a B)</p>
<p>Your responses are greatly appreciated!! Thanks for reading </p>
<p>DEpends. Have you completed another transferable math already? If so you shoud be fine unless stats is required for your major. If you have not completed a transferable math class than you won’t meet the transfer requirements. Try to find a stats class at another school or one that starts half way thru semester </p>
<p>Hi @sonic 123, thanks for the reply! No I have not completed another transferable math and stats is required for my major. Sadly my schedule cannot permit me to drive to another community college and take a stats courses there. But hopefully another community college offers an online stats course that starts half way through the semester. Hopefully I will be able to find one. Thanks for your suggestions.</p>
<p>Hi @sega18, thanks for the reply! Yes I agree that not having my math pre-req will hurt my chances. I think I am just going to get a W and as you said hope i still get in. I guess I just have to wait and see what happens. It just sucks because I feel like I have done everything correctly and gotten good grades in all my classes and this one class/teacher is going to be what ruins my chances.</p>
<p>@sonic23 OMG i found an online statistics class at Foothill community college and it starts in April and ends in July! I am about to register for it! But now I am worried what the UC’s will think if I withdraw from my community college and take it over there? what do you think?</p>
<p>well you do need this class to transfer, and you where going to drop the other math class anyway right? Might as well take it imo. Just make sure to email all UCs you applied to and let them know. Imo its better than not taking it because UCs will more than likely not accept you w/out the class since its a requirement to transfer. </p>
<p>I did something similar. I withdrew from chemistry my first semester at community college. So I only have one W amongst my stream of As. It’s sad. But your situation sounds worse, because you planned your major already and this is essentially the culmination of CC. This withdrawal will set you back, but you’re likely to survive the ordeal. Good luck.</p>
<p>@sonic23 - Yes I am planning on dropping it but I am going to talk to my professor first to see if there is any other possible way for me to get a C in her class. I am def going to call the UC’s first and ask if what I am doing is appropriate. I feel like it is weird that in the middle of the semester I am withdrawing from a stats class and taking it at another Community college that is 80 something miles away from me. I have never been in this kind of situation before. For the past two years I have taken all my classes at the community college near my house and suddenly I will be taking one class at another college. I wonder if the UC’s will view my situation negatively. Hopefully the fact I have a good GPA will help me. btw thank you for your responses. Good luck with these upcoming months; I hope you get into all the places you applied to! </p>
<p>@sega18- yes having a W is going to suck. It will be my first. So far this semester I have all A’s except for my stats class and that is why I want to get a W instead of a D or worse. Thank you and thanks for responding again! Good luck with these upcoming months; I hope you get into all the places you applied to!</p>
<p>You need to contact UC Merced admissions Monday and discuss your options. Or, perhaps better, go see a xfer counselor at your CC right away. They may know the answers or have phone numbers of peers at Merced they can quickly call. This is not something that should wait. Without a transferable math class you are not even eligible for admission to UCs, and the UCs generally require that you complete all requirements by spring prior to the year you intend to transfer. You need accurate advice quickly.
I hate to say it but the problem probably is not the teacher here. I don’t intend to be mean, but if you don’t understand what’s happening and why your odds of doing better in this class or in the Foothill class are low.</snip></p>
<p>Given that you have no transferable math classes, I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that the classes you’ve taken the past 2 years are more the liberal-arts variety. English. Psychology. History. etc. And those classes have a predictable format. The prof talks in front of class about the material, and you get it. Because the material is in some sense just stories, and you are so adept at learning from stories that you can hear them once and you’ve got it. You might read thru the assigned chapters to pick up on some details (what, for example, differentiates classical from operant learning) but those are just details that go into a framework that was easily learned.</p>
<p>You seem to think the same thing is going to happen in your stats class, that’s why you think you have the “worlds worst stats professor”. You go to class, listen dutifully to her talk expecting its going to make things clear the same way a lecture does in a Psych class, and then have absolutely no idea how to do the homework or apply what she covered to your tests. Well, nobody learns science or math by listening to someone talk about it. These classes take work; a student doing well in them spends 6-10 hours each week outside of class studying, doing the homework, doing practice problems. I’d bet you’ve spent a small fraction of this time on your stats class, so in a sense your outcome was inevitable.</p>
<p>This is on your shoulders, not hers. And even if she is completely disorganized and impossible to follow, its still something you could fix. With Khan Academy, iTunesU, etc. there are just so many ways to get great explanations of the concepts in your class. But even if they explain it better, explanations are not enough. There simply is no substitute for spending the 6-10 hours each week it takes to master the material. The answer to passing this class takes your time and $10. The $10 is to buy the book “Statistics Problem Solver” which has thousands of worked problems. You open the book to the chapter matching what is covered in your class and start working problems until you are getting them right. This isn’t fun, it takes hours of work for each class, but its what you will need to do in order to learn the material in a math or science class.</p>
<p>@mikemac. Yes i intend on talking to UC Merced and the other UC’s i have applied to on Monday. You are right I have taken English, History, and Psych classes BUT have also taken Intermediate Algebra, Biology, and Chemistry, all of which i have either passed with an A or B nothing less.( I didnt need a UC transferable math to take Bio Or Chem because Chem’s only prereq was Intermediate algebra and my Bio 101 prerequisite was Chem).</p>
<p>This Stats class I am in is like nothing else I have experienced. My professor teaches stats in a whole other way. The exams are all fill in the blank (she does not use scantrons and it is not multiple choice) and required short answers to each problem; And she does not grade our answers depending on whether or not we know the concept rather if we have answered it in a way that she agrees with or in her opinion is right, even if it shows we grasp the concept she will award either half credit or none; she said herself our first exam is a learning curve as to how she wants us to answer the questions. (that is what i suffer with most is answering in a complete sentence in a way that she would find correct) IF it was purely math and formulas i would not be having such a hard time. We have not learned any formulas as we use technology (which i prefer) but we barley even use our calculators on our test. She advise us not to go to any of the schools tutors unless the tutor had passed her class because any other Stats tutor would not understand. I guess I shouldve listened to her because when i went to the tutors none of them had taken her but I still stayed, which is my mistake. I have also looked up videos on Khan Academy (khan academy was hard to follow since most of his problems he used formulas and my professor dosent).</p>
<p>She actually just sent out an email stating half of our class had failed the second exam and that she doesn’t understand how only 2 people got A’s on the second exam. I am going to stay in her class for at least another month until the online class in Foothill starts just to see if i can change my grade by changing what I have been doing, ( i am going to try practicing to think more like her and try my best to word the answer how she would). I know your not trying to be mean but when you say “I’d bet you’ve spent a small fraction of this time on your stats class, so in a sense your outcome was inevitable.” is astounding to me since you were not there with me from 9:00 am to 8:15 pm from Monday to Wed every week at the library or the 4 hours I spent in my study group each weekend. And the countless of other hours I have spent doing the homework which is worth less than 20 percent of my grade and she assigns in volume( the homework takes up most of my time but doesn’t even prepare me for the exams, seeing that we need a computer program to do the homework problems which we obviously cannot use on the exam). It is EXTREMELY embarrassing to me that I am trying so hard and still failing. It sucks when I feel like I understand the concepts, but then get my exam score back and seeing that i really don’t understand some of the concepts. And even when I do understand at least some of the concepts, i see i got half credit for not stating my sentence correctly. </p>
<p>I expect to be more successful in the online stats class because a friend of mine who attends Foothill college has had the stats professor I am planing on taking it with(she is the one who recommend it to me) and has told me the outline of the class and the way it works online and it seems like a better fit for me than the class I am in now. So thank you for your suggestions but I do not appreciate the fact that you categorized me as someone who has never taken a science or math course before and does not spend the amount of time necessary for the class. I will look into buying “Statistics Problem Solver” and I really hope it will be useful for the class I am in now, but i think it may come in better use for the online Stats class. I will def suggest it to the rest of my classmates since more than half of us have a D or lower in her class. </p>
<p>I see my faults, I spend way too much time doing the Homework instead of the chapter practice and I need to practice how to answer in a sentence that she would find correct. I will try and do all these things within the next month before my online stats class starts and see if anything changes, but i doubt things will since 80 percent of my grade are exams and I didn’t do well on the first two, and if things remain the same i have the online stats class at foothill as a back up plan and by the end of the spring quarter will have my UC math req done. I also do not think she is the world worst stats professor, I had just learned I had failed my second exam and my emotions were running high and I stupidly decided to type that. </p>
<p>I’m hoping that you read my post in time!!!</p>
<p>All courses must be done by July 1st because that’s when final transcripts to the UC’s are due (I’m applying myself that’s how I know). The Final Transcript submission date may be earlier (check with UCM to be sure) but it won’t be any later than July 1st. The course you’re planning to take at Foothill College (which runs on quarter system I believe) is considered a Summer Class and they don’t accept courses taken in the Summer. If you withdraw from your course, regardless if you have 60 units, you won’t be able to transfer as a Junior because it’s a Transfer requirement to have 2 english courses & 1 math & quantitative reasoning course, and humanity courses that you probably already took.
Honestly, just stick it out. I’m personally taking a Micro Economics course that SUCKS SO BADLY, but if you want to transfer, you just have to stick it out, unless you find a class that ends and gives posts grades by July 1st.</p>
<p>Good luck and I hope you see my post in time.</p>
<p>Hello @Lovanh! Sorry my excitement caused a typo!! The class starts on April 7 and ends on June 23!! I double checked and it is definitely a Spring Course. Thank you and I really appreciate your concern because if I had made that mistake you would have totally saved me! :)</p>
<p>But I am a little worried that if I will be able to send my Final transcripts in time since the quarter ends like a few days before transcripts are due and I was also wondering how I will be IGETC certified if I have taken all of my courses except for math at my community college and only math at the Foothill college? I know foothill will not certify me so i will need my community college to do so but with such little frame of time will I be able to make the deadline?</p>
<p>If you decide to take your Stats course at Foothill College, then you just bring your Foothill College official transcript. There you’ll take it to your counselors office or administrations & records office and they’ll input that you’ve taken the course at Foothill. You should be fine, but I definitely would consult with your counselor. </p>
<p>June 23rd is a super short deadline. I’ve known teachers that don’t post grades for 2-3 weeks and I’ve never personally had a teacher that posted grades within a couple of days. Sorry, not trying to freak you out, but just trying to give you a heads up. Also, don’t forget that transcripts take 2-3 BUSINESS days to process because it’s printed out by a company named Credentials or something. It’s a VERY strict deadline that is quite hard to meet. Not impossible but extremely difficult since so much is dependent on when the teacher posts the grades. </p>
<p>I personally recommend looking at the rubric/syllabus, see what you have to score from here on out to at least receive a C and if there’s a possibility you can score like a C or a B, then reduce your hours at work and stick with it. If there’s no possible way to score higher than a C, than take the W, go to Foothill.</p>
<p>Sorry if I’m no major help, but I hope everything works out!</p>
<p>No you have helped me alot! Thank you. You have also given me a lot to think about. I talked with UC Merced and they said that as long as I keep them updated on my situation and maybe make arrangements with the college and instructor to have it done on time then I should be good (hopefully) </p>
<p>In all honestly you will be probably fine… This is uc Merced that we are talking about. They have a shortage of students. If it were ucla or berkeley then u would be in big trouble.</p>
<p>As a math major I can say that watching a few khan academy videos will go a long way. </p>