I got like 2.0 GPA…it was inexcusable, I know. I was in top 10% back in my own high school (like the best high school in my state) and etc. but I messed up really hard this fall due to depression and the difficulty in transition to adulthood. I mean…I know I am smart enough to do the work and even do really well. I just need to fix some internal problems.
I am currently thinking of going to a top business/science grad school for like a joint MBA/MS degree and then work as a manager in a biotech company. I looked them up and they all want a GPA at 3.6 or so. Is there any hope for me to pull my GPA up for the rest of my Duke career? I am thinking of majoring in biophysics (or biochem) and econ.
I am fixing myself this winter to get back unto track. I think I will also get help from Duke docs when I go back for my mental problems. Any sincere advice is appreciated. Thank you.
Good for you for realizing you need to ask for help and make some changes in your life.
Please speak honestly with your parents. Share your struggles with them. They love you and want to help you work through this. You need a counselor to help you work through your depression, and possibly some medication. And you need to meet with the proper academic staff at Duke as well.
If you are already on probation, then they may have a structured set of requirements for you to follow. If not, you need to ask for help with tutoring, learning study habits, etc.
Was your falling behind due to excessive partying? Lack of study skills/time management? Homesickness and/or Mental health issues? Or a combination?
Just how to you plan to “fix yourself” in just a few weeks of break? This probably is going to be a long recovery, and you need to prepare yourself for ups and downs as you work to get better at adjusting to college life.
What you are going through is very common. You are not alone in your suffering. Colleges are prepared to help, but you have to open up and let them know you need help. It can feel awkward to admit you are not perfect, but once you do, the relief of knowing you have supportive people to come alongside you will be comforting.
ThisMn- Pleae, please, please talk to adults when you get back to Duke. Like you’ve identified, CAPS is a good resource. If you find that CAPS doesn’t work for you (and for a lot of my friends, it didn’t), you may ask for an off-campus referral; if you’re on FA, FA will cover it.
Your Dean is a great person to start talking with- so is your academic advisor, residence hall coordinator, or any of the student affairs staff that are on West Campus. The Academic Resource Center is also a great resource and can help you set up plans for time management, studying, project management, etc. One of my roommates has a weekly appt with an ARC advisor to make it through the semester; I crash my mentors’ offices (combination of student affairs staff and faculty) at least once weekly just to talk about what my life is like and what’s going on in that moment.
I’ve listed a whole bunch of adults-- you just have to find one mentor/adult that you ‘click’ with that can help. Peer Advisors are also a great resource if you want advice from student about how to approach these conversations with professors and other adults (or how to go to office hours, what to say to professors, how to use academic resources). Your RA (or any RA in your building) is similarly a good person to go talk to.
While grad school is important (and so are goals), I wouldn’t worry about that now. Focus on next semester. (Take a look at the classes you’re taking right now for the spring on ACES- what is a reasonable schedule that is interesting, lets you explore your interests, but reasonable given what you know about your first seemster?).
@ThisMan Focus on the here and now… improving yourself FIRST, then your grades will follow, step by step. Stop thinking about Grad school right now. Don’t worry about it. Focus on doing the right thing every day.
Thanks for your great advice. I think right now I am going to get help from people at Duke and develop good study habits. Life has always been harsh on me (a lot of family and personal pain since I was like four years old and the pain just doesn’t stop), and I have always been in isolation all my years with very few friends and people to talk to. It’s great to know that I am not alone and that my life is not over.
Just improve your grades going forward. Top schools don’t have hard and fast GPA requirements. They just want to be sure that you’re capable of handling the workload. Get good grades from this point forward, participate in extracurricular activities and secure a few internships. You’ll be completely fine.
Im a current Duke sophomore so I may be of some help. My first question is were you doing everything possible last semester to get good grades in classes? Were you going out on weekends and Wednesday nights more than you should have? Did you go to office hours? Study for exams from 1-2 weeks before? Attend most if not all lectures? Typically, if you stay on top of the material, you will end up with at least a B in almost any given class.
Also consider some time off. If you went straight from HS (and all the pressure to get IN to Duke), right into all the adjustments of being away from home and a different kind of high stress environment, all without dealing with all the other prior stressors you reference, you may simply be asking too many things of yourself all at once. Take some time to steady yourself – if not time off, then a lighter load next semester. Plan something non-academic for the summer. Anything to give yourself time to think and process and deal with any issues you’re struggling with. You’ll thank yourself later. (And be a better student too.)
Mental health problems are nothing to downplay. Why wait until you get back to campus? Check with your insurance provider, you might be eligible for some phone based counseling now.
Thanks for your great advice. I do have insurance, but my psychiatrist said that it’s best if I can get help from Duke since I am going to stay there for several months. I definitely did NOT do everything possible to get good grades (sleeping in plus passive studying). I think if I can steady myself up, get good study habits, and get my depression down, then I can definitely do well. The materials are not too hard to be frank
I just finished my first semester at Duke (Pratt) and I just wanted to say that it has not been a smooth journey for me as well! My standard (in terms of grades) dropped significantly from that during high school years, along with accepting a notion that being average at Duke is just as good, which significantly eased the pressure and stress during the first few months.
OP, many, if not all, of my friends struggled through their first semester. Who gets 0.1 higher or lower on his GPA is not significant; rather knowing that we are all in this together, and people have completed this treacherous journey before for many, many years.
Take advantage of the resources available to you as aforementioned: ARC, deans etc. But make sure to enjoy the time at Duke while still making your academics your priority.
Thank you! After days of counseling and help from others, I have felt better about myself and have gotten myself back unto track a bit. It would take a much longer period to really recover, but thank you all very much!!! I really appreciate u all. Definitely gonna work really hard (and smart) next semester and then go from there. Have a great break ya all!
ThisMn, you’ve received a lot of good advice. As a parent of a Duke freshman, please allow me to amplify one point: try to get involved deeply in at least one extracurricular activity. It concerns me that you listed isolation as an issue. One of the best ways to address this is to get involved in something outside of class and work with your fellow students on a common goal. At college, you don’t have to be in class as much as in high school, so it’s important that you use your time constructively. Sometimes, having too little to do can be boring and isolating and can sap your motivation. There are so many diverse, interesting activities going on at Duke; take advantage. (Of course, please pursue counseling, as others advised.)
Finally, please don’t worry about grad school yet. Set that aside and focus on the here and now. If Duke admitted you, they have faith in you. You can make it.
I would like to commend you for owning your struggle rather than complaining that Instructor A did this wrong and Instructor B did that wrong. Nowadays it is typical to see students go from instructor to instructor telling them what GPA they need or else X and to attribute their lower than they desire GPA to the instructors rather than to themselves. We are now at a point where it is usual to hear, during finals, students convey that they were depressed, didn’t attend class all semester, didn’t take tests or write papers but now expect the instructor to find an outcome that would give the student full credit for the class. They mistake depression or sometimes a physical illness for a justifiable reason to get credit for what they missed or failed to complete, “What do you mean I won’t get credit, I was depressed. I have a note from my doctor”. So the fact that the OP is not taking that stance is very refreshing!
incidentally I’ve seen students nudge their grades up this way (but a A- will keep me out of X-I need an A) and I’ve seen students get full credit for 4-5 classes in a semester they missed 80% of the classes and many assignments. They work each instructor until they succeed. Administrators are scared to take a stance that supports academic achievement for fear of law suits (I suppose). It is outrageous and reflect incivility.
