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Professor ruined my GPA!
xxariana39
10 replies9 threads New Member
I finally finished my first semester of college and i got a 2.5 gpa! I only had 4 classes: Comp, pre-algebra, history and child growth/development. I ended up getting B in pre-alg, A in comp, D in history, and incomplete for child growth (im not done with that class yet). since pre-alebra is not a college course, the B doesnt go towards my gpa. So i only have grades A and D towards my gpa. I cant believe i got a D in history! I worked really hard in that class. I knew i was failing that class because for my mid term grade i also got a D. I talked to my professor and he told me if i passed the final exam and did extra credit i can get my grade up to a B. Well.. I just got my grades back in, and i still have a D! I almost withdrew from that class, but he was against it because he said he was sure i could raise my grade!.Should i email my professor?
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Replies to: Professor ruined my GPA!
Did you do the extra credit? What did you get on that?
You mention extra credit. You don't mention getting the answers right on the tests.
You were failing at the midterm-- what did you do to increase your grade other than ask for extra credit? Did you attend office hours? Get a tutor? Put in extra time on the reading? Do any outside research?
Your grades are your responsibility, not his. You speak of what he did. You had a D at the midterm. How did HE ruin your grade??
What did you do?
He said that if you passed the final and turned in extra credit, you could raise your grade to a B. Translation: it is possible for you to raise your grade to a B, but you would've had to have done well on the final and turn in the extra credit (and potentially do well on that, too).
In general, professors have no desire to ruin your GPA or any particular investment in the grade that you get for a class. In fact, most professors want to see most of their students do well. You get the grade that you earn.
You need to be more aware that effort counts for nothing in college (with a very, very few exceptional cases). It's all about achievement. If you achieve at a high level, you get a good grade, no matter the level of effort expended; similarly, if you achieve at a low level, you get a low grade, regardless of effort expended.
As a college professor, if I had the power to instantly change one thing about K-12 education to better prepare students for college, it would be to somehow teach students early on that effort is important for but not determinative of academic success.
Apparently you didn't.
Your 9 pages may not have directly answered the questions; or may have been a combination of terms and discussions that didn't make sense. The quantity of pages does not mean a thing if you didn't answer the questions correctly. Most people can ramble on about a subject and not make any sense.
The students who get A's also work "hard" but they put in extra efforts. I have a dd who attends every tutoring session, office hour, and study group even though she's an A student. She said she learned early that the A students attend office hours and study groups.
Use this as a learning experience. Next time, you'll do better.
As others have said, ask what you got on the final. If nothing else, at least you'd know that. If you're taking any other classes that build on this one, I would go into the professor's office hours next semester to go over your final and find out what you did right and what you need to improve on. And even if you're not taking a later history class that builds on this one, you may want to do it anyway; the issues may be general issues that you need to improve on in other subjects, and in order to improve on those you need to know what's going on.
It's not the end of the world, but use this as a lesson and learn from it for future semesters.
The number of students who've told me "But I wrote X pages!" as if that's actually a meaningful metric…
1- there are larger, school-wide consequences to plagiarizing
2- if you do not understand how to properly cite information you're using, or how to take good notes that don't plagiarize unintentionally (by copying phrases that may be from a textbook or a website into your writing), your future college work will be impacted
Both of these concerns will require you to talk to the professor and understand the type of plagiarism he found in your work. However, I would reframe what's happening- professors don't give grades or ruin GPAs; they record the grade you earn. You did not think that you were plagiarizing, but it is possible because you are new in college. Could the two of you meet when school starts to discuss so that you can learn for the future? (because, again, you have much bigger problems further down than this 1 D if you are unintentionally plagairizing).