My first year of college is soooo close to being over. It’s crazy to think that I graduated HS a year ago. Time flies like crazy. I’ve learned a lot this year, but most of it has nothing to my classes.
Going in, I figured school would be easy like high school was. Even in the classes I didn’t try at, a B- was always within reach. I though I would have to try to fail! My college courses though pretty much punched me the face. None of them have been “hard”, but the time commitment threw me off. I was used to studying for approximately zero hours in high school. That hasn’t flown in college.
Perfect example: my algebra class. Things started out OK, but quickly headed towards disaster. Last Friday, my grade was a 57%. I was 2 points away from failing. Embarrassing. Once I realized how screwed up the stituation was, I knew I had 3 options:
- Continue the class and pray for a D so I can continue my math sequence
- Continue the class, get an F which means my GPA goes in the toilet and I have re-take the class
- Drop the class, get a W on my transcript (no GPA effect), take the class Winter 2012
Guess what I chose? After asking my valedictorian high school friend for advice, I dropped. As much as I hated it do it, it was the best option. Even if I aced the final, which was never in a million years going to happen, I could have only gotten a C. An F would have been worthless and a waste of time. Dropping lets me practically start over fresh.
College is expensive – one year in and I’m already $9,000 in debt – and getting bad grades adds to the costs since a crappy GPA makes it even harder to get a job. Dropping this class lets me focus on my remaining classes and now I know what I can expect when I come back from Italy.
Valuable lesson learned: know when to cut your losses and move on. It sucks that I wasted most of the quarter going to a class that I’m retaking in a year, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
