In High School, I was the typical “nerd.” I was always on top of things, making sure to study for all of those exams, quizzes, etc. and I earned a cumulative 3.8 GPA. If I missed an assignment or got less than a B on a test, I freaked out. I would always make sure that I would do better the next time and figure out what I got wrong…
Now College came. Everything is much more difficult. I study countless hours daily and I don’t think I’m getting anywhere. It’s getting to the point where I am just having that “screw it” attitude…I am not failing anything but I don’t think I can handle this.
I am a Pre-Nursing student. I am taking Gen/Biological Chem, Anatomy, and Psychology and it’s super hard to stay on top of things. I had my first Anatomy exam a few days ago and it was the hardest test I’ve ever taken. I am for sure I got a B but I wanted an A in the worst way. I studied so hard for it and when the exam came my mind went blank. I never had this type of anxiety before in H.S. but now in College when an exam comes I get so anxious.
People even tell me that the course load I have right now isn’t even that bad. Now I feel stupid.
I seriously don’t know what is going to become of my life right now. I have another exam this week and I don’t feel prepared for it because for the past week or so I have just been studying chemistry and anatomy. I didn’t have time for the other class. All for the past four weeks my life has just been studying Chemistry, Anatomy, getting prepared for lab, etc. and I’m afraid I can’t do it all.
I feel like nothing is going to become of my life… I seriously didn’t think College would be so hard to the point where I would be questioning everything about myself: my intelligence, ability, etc. Now I don’t see any confidence in my ability. In my future I see nothing, I feel as though I’m going to be a nobody.
Deep breath, deep breath. There is a lot that goes into this transition to college, it is a bit of a steep learning curve at first. There is a lot to get adjusted to. For many students the workload is a big adjustment. First of all I am going to say what I said to my own daughter a year ago when she started college and felt so overwhelmed, “your head is not going to blow off if you don’t get an A.” Right now you feel very stressed, but it is learning how to cope with the stress and face your challenges that is going to bring growth, not giving up at the first sign of a struggle.
So how do you solve this problem. Be a little patient with yourself. Go to the professor’s office hours and ask for help with anything that you are struggling with in the material and for tips on how to get more efficient/effective at studying it. Go to your schools academic support program and again try to learn strategies for being more efficient. See if there are any study groups in your classes and if not, see if you can form one and study with peers going through the same thing.
You can do this. It is hard. If college were easy, everyone would do it. Many things that are worthwhile in life are hard. You went to college, first and foremost, to learn. To tell you the truth, I want any nurse who touches me to be the ones that really worked hard to learn what they needed to learn to be a nurse, not necessarily the one for whom it all came easy.
It also might depend one what level of courses you were taking in HS…
If you took College Prep, Honors or AP level sciences, for example?
And even if you take AP level…what you did in a year in HS you would do in a semester in College.
GO TO CLASS, BUY THE BOOK, READ THE CHAPTERS, AND DO THE HOMEWORK!
Go to Professor’s office hours and Ask this question: “I know this is a really difficult class-- what are some of the common mistakes students make and how can I avoid them?”
If you have problems with the homework, go to Prof’s office hours. If they have any “help sessions” or “study sessions” or “recitations” or any thing extra, go to them.
Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.
Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or whatever. Watch videos on line about the topic you are studying.
Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)
If things still are not going well, get a tutor.
Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.
If you feel you need to withdraw from a class, talk to your advisor as to which one might be the best …you may do better when you have less classes to focus on. But some classes may be pre-reqs and will mess your sequence of classes up.
For your tests, can you evaluate what went wrong? Did you never read that topic? Did you not do the homework for it? Do you kind of remember it but forgot what to do? Then next time change the way you study…there may be a study skill center at your college.
How much time outside of class do you spend studying/doing homework? It is generally expected that for each hour in class, you spend 2-3 outside doing homework. Treat this like a full time job.
At first, don’t spend too much time other things rather than school work. (sports, partying, rushing fraternities/sororities, video gaming etc etc)
If you run into any social/health/family troubles (you are sick, your parents are sick, someone died, broke up with boy/girlfriend, suddenly depressed/anxiety etcetc) then immediately go to the counseling center and talk to them. Talk to the dean of students about coordinating your classes…e.g. sometimes you can take a medical withdrawal. Or you could withdraw from a particular class to free up tim for the others.Sometimes you can take an incomplete if you are doing well and mostly finished the semester and suddenly get pneumonia/in a car accident (happened to me)…you can heal and take the final first thing the next semester. But talk to your adviser about that too.
At the beginning of the semester, read the syllabus for each class. It tells you what you will be doing and when tests/HW/papers are due. Put all of that in your calendar. The professor may remind you of things, but it is all there for you to see so take initiative and look at it.
Make sure you understand how to use your online class system…Login to it, read what there is for your classes, know how to upload assignments (if that is what the prof wants).
If you get an assignment…make sure to read the instructions and do all the tasks on the assignment. Look at the rubric and make sure you have covered everything.
If you are not sure what to do, go EARLY to the professors office hours…not the day before the assignment is due.
You might think that this is all completely obvious, but I have read many stories on this and other websites where people did not do the above and then are asking for help on academic appeal letters.