Hi all, Second year Aerospace Engineering major at UCI.
I know this may be early but I do hope to go to graduate school, if only for a Masters in an engineering field. All was going well until I took a Differential Equations class this summer.
I blame myself for the most part, due to me venturing into the party scene for the first time, but also because my professor was absolutely the worst. Terrible accent, incredibly dry and worst of all, would just skip crucial chunks of material to speed the class along. Grades were based on HW(25%), Midterm(35%) and a Final(45%). I did fine on HW (~ 85% of all the points), and decent on the midterm (29/40). By this point I lost interest and was too frustrated with the professor to show up to his 8am lectures.
I tried learning the material on my own but it was pretty difficult and it ended with me skipping my final exam this morning because I figure I should just retake the class, given that I would prefer to just retake and actually learn than get a barely passing grade but have no actual knowledge of the subject.
My school will let me retake a C- or below and I didn’t show up so I’m assuming I’ll get a plain F. Point is, am I basically screwed? I plan to retake the class in a quarter or two and the new grade will replace the old one when calculating GPA, but the original grade remains on my transcript. Is this the end…?
^The above is true, depending on the professor. Some professors will calculate your actual grade, but other professors will give you an incomplete and try to contact you to get you to take the final. At the very least, explain what you are doing to the professor so they’re not wondering what the deal is.
Reasons for failing aside, no, one F will not tank you forever. Retake the class and do well in it.
Two issues here. At some schools, and I is only given when the student asks and the professor agrees to it. Otherwise it will be an F or a Not Attending which is basically an F.
Secondly, taking a course as challenging as Differential Equations in summer is always a risky thing. The summer term is short, particularly if your school is on a semester system. This means that you have half the time to assimilate the material and differential equations is not trivial.
Take the class again and stay away from this kind of course in summer school.
^Yes I agree - in fact, I would say that at most schools an I is only given when you ask about it and the professor agrees to it. However, I have had a few experiences in which a student misses the final exam and completely disappears from the end of the course, and the professor gives that student an I in an attempt to be nice while he or she tries to contact the student. However, in the vast majority of cases, you’ll simply get an F.
Your thought process here is VERY bad. It does not matter what the professor is like. You should always be getting top grades, and you should never take such a huge risk of getting an F; before skipping the final, you should have researched the consequences or otherwise figured them out beforehand, not afterwards.
I mean, let’s be real. Sometimes it DOES matter what the professor is like. Sometimes, a good professor can make a world of difference in a student’s comprehension and performance. And sometimes, a professor’s style (whether that professor is objectively good or bad) just doesn’t work for a certain student and they don’t do well. I mean, if the professor truly WAS skipping large chunks of the material and then testing students on it without covering it, that can contribute to class failure (particularly for students who are having a hard time grasping the material on their own).
That’s not to say that the OP is not partially or even wholly responsible for his failing grade, but that’s besides the point anyway.