glumirk wrote:

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So I just found out I got a 33% on a final exam I took yesterday.  The first test I got a 68%, so I had the strength to try harder for the next test, and study harder, and I got a 45%.  The next test I didn't have as much time, but spent a whole lot of time studying what we'd been doing in class, and he pulled out 4 problems that I thought we'd gone over before the last test, and I hadn't brushed up on them.  I got a 47%.  On all of the tests I felt confident that the work that I had done was mostly correct.  The teacher is a harsh grader, but I figured I'd just be able to blow him away on the final exam by studying extra hard.  I haven't been around here much for the last week because I've been studying and don't have time to be an active participant.  My fiance, who took a similar class this semester, helped me study all week and I felt fairly confident walking into the exam.  Two problems, with 5 parts total.  I did decently on the last problem (2 parts), but I couldn't figure out one little thing on the first part of the first problem, and I spent an hour and fifteen minutes manipulating equations and I didn't allow myself to be discouraged at all until there were 5 minutes left until the teacher was going to leave and I decided to just turn it in then before the rush of people (as a third of the class was still in there). 

I took this class last semester, from a different department, and failed for the same reason:  the extra time I was putting into the class got me worse grades.  But I have to take this class and pass it, and I was going to take it from the original department and replace the grade, and the reason I took this class was so that I could learn it well enough to get at least a C so that I can ace it when I use the Grade Replacement. 

Now I don't know what to do.  This class made me lose my scholarship, and even worse, I'm now discouraged.  I feel like I don't even want to go on to graduate.  It'll sure save us a lot of money as newly-weds.  But I just don't feel like myself these days.  I kept having the suspision that I'd do just as well on this test as the past tests, but I just brushed it aside and tried to be as optimistic as possible.  Now I am completely discouraged, and I can't seem to knock it.  Any suggestions?  I get this way whenever I fail at something really important to me, and I can see how it hurts others to see me like this....completely miserable, but I can't seem to change.  The best thing is sleep, but that's only temporary.

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Definitely sleep, recover from this  setback. Then regroup and figure out what to do. But don't give up, ever. I don't know your major but do consider if another teacher might be a better fit for you w/your learning style. For example, I once had to drop out of a physics class- I couldn't understand the teacher's foreign language version of English (no offense), and the class was too mathmatically based for me. But when I took it later w/another teacher and a different type of physics (more verbal, less math), I got an A, I think.

I speak from experience when I say I know  how it feels to get that type of low score- I had such a score in my grad school anataomy course. I felt horrible, I ended up passing the class but retook it to get a better foundation. I don't know if something like this impacts your overall     self-esteem, it did for me. So I will share the following:
After my score on the first test, ( I think it was in the high 40s), I was required to meet w/the professor. I remember and appreciate so well how he basically  said that even though I got that type of low score, DO NOT feel like that equates w/your self-worth or "score" as a person. I had a classmate who also received a similarly low score and she appreciated that same counsel the teacher gave her, to not feel like a bad person just due to having a low score.
Yes you didn't do as well as  you'd wanted. But remember you are an A plus fiancee to your fiancee. Remember you are a good daughter, a good sister of all of us here at Bountiful. Remember you are a good worker in the things you do. Remember your worth and value in all your other endeavors of life.

Also, do not give up on your dreams of graduating. Don't rationalize it away by talking about the need to save money. Yes, this is a little detour in your plan and maybe you need to figure out a way to regain the scholarship or work to complete your degree. But please do not give up on the pursuit of that degree.

Hang in there!

First thing... keep things in perspective. This too shall pass. It is in the past, and there is nothing that can be done to undue the past. Learn from it and move forward. (hmm, are there any other "trite" sayings I can string together ) Seriously, though, you'll see that those seeming cliche's are a lot less cliche and a lot more real world life as you move forward.

How far are you from graduation? How far are you into your major?

Nearly every major has classes that are specifically designed to "wash" people out. Is this a required class for your major? There are even some departments that have classes set up to "wash" people out, even if the class is a requirement for a major not in their department. If this is a required class, is there a way for you to take it from a different professor who is not as apathetic about students actually understanding?

I can empathize with your experience Glumirk. My first semester back at BYU after getting married was the worst experience in my life. Had been married for about a year, picked up classes at Ohio State towards my major while my wife finished school. Well, that semester started great with a field course in my major (Geology) for several weeks before the actual semester started. Class was hard, but did well. So, going into the actual class work I thought would be doable, hard, but doable. Problem was, I ended up with three "wash out" classes the same semester... the one from my department, the one from the physics department, and the one from the math department. And all three were required, where I had to get a C or better. Problem was, the physics one also had all the physics majors in it, the math one also had all the math majors in it, and both had all the engineering students in it as well. My department had little to do with any of them, but it had to have these classes to meet some academic nonsense of showing how robust the program was (the professors in my department would even say that unless you were doing very specific things in the field, you would never use physics or calculus the way it was being taught -- mathmatically)...

So, here were the classes and the result: Geology wash out = Mineralology A- or B (woohoo, cuz I knew Geology professors who had to take it a couple times before they passed!); Physics wash out = B- or C (okay, but I had two more classes to go in Physics, harder than the first because it was all taught from a calculus standpoint); Calculus = C- or D (and I had one more to go, and not sure if I was going to have take it over). I had already messed up on Chemistry back at Ohio State on grades and would have to retake the two classes there in a three class series at BYU.

Result, after soul searching, I decided I was washed out. The major was not for me if after a whole semester, the only retained knowledge was how to identify a dodecahedron and give it's crystal symmetry. I had learned conceptually as much I was capable of under my circumstances in these ancillary subjects, particularly since on those type of subjects and classes I was just another warm body in an auditorium of several hundred (I'm sorry, but I do not believe it is right to try and teach science or math in large bodies, because inevitably the professor will cater to the students who are at the top of the bell curve in conceptual understanding). Am I incapable of understanding the material? No. But, I'll have to learn it differently than the typical university approach of huge lecture class and then grad student recitation section where again, individualized attention is a joke at best.

I ended up changing majors, but finished up a minor in Geology. I was much happier in the long run. For a while, I felt like a failure too (as you have hinted at in your thoughts). But, the question I would ask more, rather than dwell on not getting the grade you needed in one class, is why do you want to be an engineer? Is it just something you thought would be nice, or is it something you really have a passion and a strong aptitude for? Is there something that you may be better at, should you go into the work force?

If you changed majors, what could you choose that may better suit you, and cause the least amount of class re-work to meet graduation requirements? If you don't change majors, and this class is a requirement for your program or graduation, are there alternate methods for taking the class that may work better with your personal learning and comprehension capacities?

Above all, even though you are engaged to marry soon, do not decide to quit school unless it is an extreme need to do so. Then, you should only do so if you both have a definite plan of how you are going to finish your Bachelors. It is not wise to not finish it these days for 1. as married life progresses and children come and the burdens of full adult life are added, it is not as easy to go back and finish up college education or to obtain more college education (more degrees); and 2. there could quickly come the day where you would / could end up having to be the bread winner -- say death or permanent disability of your future husband

I was the drop-king... I'd drop a class at the first sign of failure. Most professors would schedule their first exam before the first drop date. If I didn't score well enough on it, I'd simply drop the class. I knew that if I scored less than about a 75% that I wouldn't do well enough in the class by the end of the semester and that it'd be best to wait and take it another time, rather than risk getting a poor grade.

I don't suggest you follow this tactic. It's somewhat um... well... cowardly, I suppose. :)

--Ray

heh. I passed Foundations of Analysis to get a minor in Mathematics. That was a killer course. Of the class of 20 or so students there was one A-, two low B's, and the rest were D's and F's.

I think I pulled a B-. I was ecstatic. The only way I passed was I was good friends with a grad student in mathematics and practically every day i went to her office to get help with the proof homework... 

Heck, that's how I passed a lot of classes, either in studygroups or getting to know someone who was really smart and then just begging that they help me do this or that problem. I regret not having learned some principles better, sometimes due to time constraints and a desire to have a social life, I cut corners... Sure you might not ever use some of it, especially as an engineer who uses a lot of tools and computers simulations, etc, but often it forms a foundation for the scientific principles behind the engineering.)

The key to security in the job world is to become exceedingly expert with the stuff everyone else struggles with and hates. 

--Ray