I recently found out I was suspended from Clemson University for failing to meet academic eligibility requirements (AKA grades). This is after my 3rd semester in college, having spent al if my freshman year on academic probation for the same reasons.
Being suspended obviously sucks, but what scares me even more is the fact that I put in more effort this semester than all of last year combined, yet somehow came out worse.
I’ll be the first to admit that my freshman year was completely wasted by me going to parties all the time, staying up far too late at night, and all around laziness and lack of focus. My cumulative GPA after my freshman year ended up being a 0.92.
Over the summer of 2017 I found myself a part time job just to keep myself busy and try to gain some responsibility about myself, as well as taking a few classes at a local Tech school to make up a few credits for classes I had failed at Clemson.
When I returned for the fall semester that I just finished, I had a new mindset and felt prepared to get myself back on track to get off of probation and begin recovering my GPA. I found a new friend group and began going to the library regularly. I probably spent more time in one week in the library than I had all of freshman year. I got off to a strong start, and had A’s and B’s going into the 3rd round of exams. This is when things went south. I didn’t pass a single one of my exams this round. I could have studied more, I told myself, so I got myself back together and spent every hour I wasn’t eating in the library for finals. I even slept in the library a few nights. All of this only to finish worse than I had done my freshman year. This past semester my GPA did what I thought it couldn’t possibly do: it got even worse. I dropped down to a .83 cumulative GPA.
My question is what should I do over the course of my semester of suspension, and what could have led me to do even worse in a semester where I put forth more effort than the entire year before?
Do you feel like the courses are too hard for you? Sounds like you were doing the right things this year, but the exams were too hard. What is your major? And you should not have to sleep in the library.
Sounds like you may need to try community college or the Tech school and working again.
If you genuinely were doing all the work and putting in reasonable and consistent effort and studying, then I see the surprisingly very poor results as a red flag that you may have undiagnosed learning disabilities. You should look into getting tested/evaluated for learning disabilities, and if that results in any diagnoses, then you might be eligible for certain applicable academic accommodations (which the college and your professors would be legally obligated to provide you with) that would help you work around your weaknesses and likely result in higher grades that more closely reflect your actual higher ability and understanding and the good efforts you put into studying. Sometimes for some people the learning disabilities interfere in your ability to understand the material, but appropriate accommodations rectify it so that you can more easily and completely learn and understand it. In other situations for some people, they totally understand and master the material but the problem is that the learning disabilities invisibly interfere with your ability to perform on academic exams in a way that actually shows how much you have mastered, but certain academic disability accomodations for the exams would at least partially (if not completely ) rectify that for you. There is no way for you to know unless you get tested/evaluated by an appropriate professional, which is usually a neuropsychologist. Plenty of very bright people, hard-working people are held back by undiagnosed learning disabilities and it can only help you to find out, by being tested/evaluated. However, it is important that whoever tests/evaluates you is appropriately professionally credentialed and is good at it and writes good and persuasive reports that would result in you getting all the accommodations that you need (if any).
@CheddarcheeseMN I did begin to sleep a little more in the period between midterms and finals and I would occasionally miss one early morning class I had because it was the only one that did not have an attendance grade. It was strange to me though because I would go to bed at the right time to get a good 8hrs, but would find myself sleeping some 10-12 hours some days even though I had gone to bed at a decent time. However, I kept up with the posted assignments and homework. The exams counted as 70% of my final grade and I never did as well as I expected on them. Many of my other classes were based on exams alone, so there was no homework to keep up with.
@sunnyschool I’m a Biology Major and the main problem for me was chemistry. A lot of my problem throughout freshman year and I believe the second half of this year is just not taking the general classes for my major seriously. I put a lot more time into the classes like biology and chemistry than i did in stuff like communications or psychology. My SAT math was a 520
Well that explains a lot @PTucker1998 . College science classes - especially Chemistry - are very hard! Many students, at many universities, have to drop out of science majors because they can’t handle classes like Chem. It may even be a “weeder class” designed to sort out those that can handle science majors and those who can’t. Biology is likely a hard class also. SAT math is somewhat low - indicating maybe the trouble with college level science.
Maybe take classes at the Tech or Community college and work for a year, then see if you can transfer (or if Clemson would let you back in? what are terms of the suspension?). You can still find your thing, don’t worry, but do buckle down at whatever you do next.
This still doesn’t make sense to me, if only the science classes were where you didn’t do well – if you did okay in the non-science classes, then wouldn’t your overall GPA be at least a little higher than you are reporting? It seems to me that you must not have done well in most of your classes, not just the science one? For that reason, I still suspect an undiagnosed learning disability – UNLESS you really didn’t do all the work and try hard all semester in each and every course. Unless you had more than one science course at the same time in the same semester?
I am trying to get to the disconnect between your high school and your college GPA. Did you take any honors or AP classes in high school? It could be that you are not used to academic rigor. Did your parents manage your study time at home or did you manage your time and studying by yourself? You could be procrastinating and frittering your time away and not even realize it until it’s too late. I am wondering if you have inefficient study habits. If so, you may be putting in the time, but not see any fruition. You think you have learned the material when you really haven’t. It is fairly common, it’s a phenomenon called illusion of learning. What do you think?
@InfoQuestMom I took AP courses throughout HS beginning my freshman year with a sort of introductory “testing the waters” human geo class, then did full AP once it was available my junior and senior year. Made 3s and 4s on all of the AP exams. I think a large part of my disconnect is that I never really studied in HS, I managed to grasp the material by doing assignments in and out of class, that’s about it. I’m not sure I ever really taught myself a study routine in HS, so there was nothing to carry over into college and I struggled with finding time to study most of freshman year.
@bopper I don’t think I had a sleep “issue” if we are speaking medically. However I found myself staying up later as the semester went on, sometimes for studying, but a lot of times at a friend’s place across campus (reverting back to old habits of the past year). I guess my issue is that once I get into a good routine I have trouble keeping it, and it is even more difficult for me to get out of the bad routine that forms as a result. I never managed to get my sleep schedule back to normal the rest of the semester.
Ok. So you do recognize that your study skills need improvement. You can do something about that. Also, it looks like you need outside structure and accountability to stick to better habits.
I see a big disconnect between your high school GPA and your ACT/SAT scores. Your GPA was excellent, while your test scores were much lower than I would expect given your GPA. This could indicate one of two things - either your high school was not very rigorous (leaving you poorly prepared for college level work), or that you have a lot of difficulty taking tests. If the problem is lack of high school preparation, then the solution might be to attend a community college so that you can shore up your fundamental skills. If the problem is testing, then it might be useful to get tested to determine if there is an underlying learning disorder that might require accommodating. The nature of college classes puts a much heavier emphasis on testing than is typical of a high school class, so it is possible to succeed in high school without realizing there is an underlying issue.
