Upside said:
I just finished my first semester of university as well. I'm just going to say all this "adjustment and getting used to freedom" being used as an excuse is horse $hit. To a degree it holds true in regard to becoming familar with the pace and work load at the university level, but students know well in advance the warnings from parents and teachers about the amount of free time and rigour of classes before you even register for university classes. The freshman classes are your easiest ones; imagine how you will do 2 years down the road when you take 3xxx -5xxx level classes.
Something I learned first semester that will be invaluable later on is to treat college as a full time job even if it doesn't feel like it. You probably go to class on average 3 hours a day, so spend 3-5 more hours outside of class each day doing homework and/or just reading the textbook. If you have a part time job you either have less free time or less study time. Trust me, it does suck but after a while you get used to it. Better than going home and telling your folks you got kicked out of school. This semester went pretty well for me, but there is always room for improvement if I didn't get strait A's.
I set up my schedule where most of my classes start at 8 or 9 in the morning and I do my best to limit the amount of gaps inbetween classes. For example, my schedule for spring has me going 9 AM -1 PM on M+W for two classes, but there is a 2 hour gap inbetween so during that time I will be hitting the books instead of napping. Then after one I'll study until 3 PM - 5 PM with a few breaks inbetween; no later no less. Then I have the evenings to relax and do whatever. Keeps me from going insane and I won't have to stay up late to do homework. Fridays kick ass because I have class from 8 AM - 11 AM with no gaps inbetween and odds are I won't do any work outside of class on Fridays unless I really have to.
Don't think that I always did that though. 25% of the time I said fvck it and decided to slack off. Tends to happen after midterms and near the end of the week like on Thursdays and Fridays. I need to work on that for next semester. As long as people go to class and do the homework they should be fine. Classes can be very hard even if you really work at it, but if you choose to make them hard because you don't want to study then you are making a big mistake.
Anyway...
Not to sound like a b!tch, but were you really at all suprised how your term went? I keep track of all the grades I have gotten in all my classes during the semester to give me a rough estimate of how I am doing. My actual GPA was higher than my estimate after finals were over. The fact that you gasped at your semester marks when you got them kind of shows that you didn't care much during the semester. I've seen your other topics and it seems like you have girls on the top of your priority list with your recent gf issues. Girls come and go, but you can't erase your transcript. A lot of the mature men will say that girls should be a part of your life and not the main focus, if you don't want to listen to me then listen to them. Don't mess school up because you have the hots for a chick. It's college, probably wouldn't last anyway.
I'm not going to tell you if you should continue with school or not, but you can still salvage this. Your GPA won't be perfect but if you literally kick ass from now on employers and graduate schools will see the upward trend in your grades and in fact might recalculate your GPA without your first semester and compare it to your overall GPA. However, the bad first term hurts you regardless so just be wary. Just know that you aren't completely screwed.
For job prospects, it does depend on your major and GPA. Typically if your GPA is lower than a 3.00 you are not seriously considered for a lot of jobs, but it is all relative to your major, interviewing skills, internships, work experience, and the company hiring you.
Work experience > GPA
Now that you know what to expect and how college life is really like there should be no reason for you do to worse. It should only go up from here. Happens to a lot of kids and be glad you didn't fail out already.
I am fortunate in my own way. For the first two months of school I barely studied outside of class and towards the end I started treating it like my job. Luckily my grades didn't majorily suffer but as I said before, I could always do better.
So can you.
No, you're right completely. I didn't put in the time or the effort for this and I deserve the flak. I'm just glad my parents are willing to give it another go and I can show them what I can do with a clean slate. Just having mono and having to make up a month's worth of work and midterms right at the end of November was horrible. Honestly the only thing I can do is just thank you for laying it out for me like this and just being real about it.
And would you believe me if I told you that because of my gf, I've actually missed class and didn't turn in assignments because two times this semester she called me up five minutes before class bawling saying she's depressed? Seriously, I'm beginning to think she is just a huge negative factor in my life. She actually just told me that she's going to a community college next semester because her parents pulled her out due to her bad grades (worse than mine), which is a shock for her because she was an honors student last year.
So my plan is now:
1. Adopt your "school is your job" mentality, if you don't mind
. IMO it's a perfect way of looking at it and I feel like it'll help me devote more time to my studies, instead of just looking at it like "Alright, class is finished with. Now to relax".
2. Reform myself. When I was an AFC (not saying I'm fully past this stage in some regards, especially in the regard of hanging onto this girl so long, but that's more of a fear of what's going to do to herself if we break up) and horrible with women I would consistently tell myself I was confident, funny, charismatic, and in control at least once a day. Surprisingly I eventually just accepted it internally and became those qualities. I'm going to start telling myself now that I'm productive, hard-working, that I enjoy completing assignments and the feeling of reward and confidence it gives me, and that I will persevere.
3. Not bring any distractions. I'm not going to bring my desktop full of PC games with me when I go back this semester. I got a new laptop for Christmas and I'm going to use it strictly for schoolwork. I figure that is a bulk of the distractions right there, especially after a tiring day of class.
4. Break off the relationship. I cannot keep worrying about what this girl will do to herself if I break up with her, I'm beginning to realize that this relationship, while a good experience for me in some regards, was an overall negative influence in my life and an unneeded distraction. Limit girls to simply hookups and ONSs, which is more simplified and fine by me anyway.
5. Talk to my councilor about taking classes during the summer to see if I can retake the classes I did poorly in. Hopefully this can salvage my GPA a bit.
6. Re-examine my friends. A great entrepreneur told me that to be successful in the real world, in college its important who you surround yourself with. Picking productive, intelligent, and friends who generally make good grades will inevitably rub off on you. As it stands now the majority of my friends are party-ers and the majority of them are (surprise) in the same situation I am now. I'll still keep in touch with some of my better friends and hang out with them on the weekends, but I think I need to branch out to a different group of people.
That's my general game plan, how does that sound? Anything I left out?
