Struggling With Science Courses - Need Advice

gutter
Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:42:56 +0000

Man it out, get a tutor, or drop the major. I am a freshman at SUNY Oswego. Yeah yeah, nothing extraordinary to all you elites. Throughout high school, I was never particularly good at science or math, however science fascinates me (particularly biology). I was never a star student in any of these classes, and I even failed out of math one year. Senior year I took AP Biology to get a head start on college-level biology. I sucked in the class compared to everyone else, but still pulled an 88% and a 5 on the AP exam. Here I sit, right now (well, I’m laying in bed) as a Biological Sciences major. It is going to be hard as hell, but I don’t care. I am trying my best not to compare myself to others, because that does me no good. You need to worry about yourself. Work as hard as you need to and stop going over in your head how “amazing you WERE at science”. College is a whole new ballgame. I have put more work into my math course in three weeks than I have in all of high school combined. I got a 90 on my first quiz, and it felt amazing, because I earned it. I got an 80% on first chem quiz. I wanted higher, but whatever.

My point is: Work hard, don’t care about how others are doing, seek help, or change majors.



That’s probably good advice, particularly the seeking help part. I try not comparing myself to others but it’s hard not to notice when every person sitting next to you is calling out answers and you hardly even know what the question means.

I haven’t really been going over “how good I WAS in science” in my head, but when I typed up the post I was being reflective and I found myself confused about where the change occurred.

Thank you for the advice though, I may very well seek tutoring or some such.



This shows that you need to put in more effort and time into your classes. It seems that you have put in the same amount of effort into your elementary and middle school science classes as you did your high school classes. You can succeed with little effort in middle school, but not in advanced high school or college classes.



That’s the thing though, at this point in time I put multiple of hours into chemistry per day. That’s what frustrates me. I mean if I were just showing up for class and then not acing the tests that’d be one thing, but I study loads for every Chemistry class and I still feel like I missed a year’s worth of instruction somewhere along the way. I did the same thing back in high school with AP Physics and AP Chemistry…I finished every single physics assignment (~30 problems) when each problem took me up to a half hour to do. I’m just baffled by how much trouble I’m having.

Thanks for the responses so far. I’m always looking for more advice and perspectives so keep them coming.