<p>i’m probaby going to sound like an ignorant freshman, but i’m not too thrilled with my grades after my freshman year (3.4 BCMP and 3.5 regular). i’m obviously not going to kill myself over it (although i’m sure a lot of people on these boards would 
) but i’m afraid that it’s just going to get so much harder and my grades are going to get even worse. am i worrying too much? do i have to work 10 times harder than i did this year just to maintain what i have?</p>
<p>it probably will get harder unless you took a ridiculously impossible first year schedule. you should obviously aim for much higher than a ~3.5, but that’s not a horrible gpa for first year. just keep good study habits and the rest should fall into place.</p>
<p>and yes, you are worrying too much…</p>
<p>ten times harder? absolutely not…but you may have to work a lot harder in one or two specific classes. It also depends on your major. As a sociology major, I found that most of my upper level classes actually got easier as they were far more focused on specific area of sociology. However, some science disciplines, where the topics becomes ever more theoretical, the scope may narrow but the difficulty may ratchet up a bunch. Even then, it will also, perhaps most importantly, hinge on your professors. That’s one thing that everyone always overlooks. Great profs can make even the most ridiculously difficult material memorable and easy to understand, while horrible professors can make the most mundane of topics impossible.</p>
<p>The gpa is a bit lower than ideal for a medical school application, but by no means out of range. </p>
<p>Depends on what courses you took, and why they were difficult. If you are good at theory, but bad at memorization, the mixture of easy vs hard courses will be different than for students with inverse skills.</p>
<p>Some of it is the challenge of adjusting to college, the workload, level and pace of courses. Choose your courses carefully, research which you should take outside of the requirements. Avoid taking two heavy lab courses at the same time. Find out when major assignments are due, and avoid taking courses that will have the things due at the same time in more than one course. Do not skip prerequisites, even if you get permission from the professor. Work on study habits. Most colleges have offices that can help with this.</p>
<p>You also seem to be under a lot of pressure. Not to be discouraging at all, but remember medicine is only one of a universe of career choices. Do not let being a premed become the end all of your life. Maybe it is right for you, and by all means do not give up over a couple of tenths of a gpa. However, at least think about whether this is really what you want to do. People with 4.0 should do the same.</p>
<p>Your GPA is fine for your first year (which is usually the hardest). I actually found that my grades improved after transferring to UCLA from community college. I love my major (molecular biology), which really helps because I find that everything I do, from working at the hospital to doing research, is intertwined and applicable to everything else. Med schools either like to see an upward trend or good, steady grades.</p>
<p>I really don’t think your first year is normally the hardest. It certainly does get harder from here, although, again, not by 10x or anything like that.</p>