Final Exams Stress!

[Empty Wallet]

Ooh, I like the money one. Slip me some of that and I will do something about your grades.

Actually, I once had a student tell me his dad was really rich and I could have whatever I wanted to change his grade to a pass.

Poor didums failed real bad, and got a discipline action.

[Empty Wallet]

grad school will look at your overall GPA, and they'll look at it in conjunction with the classes you took, and where you took them. And besides, first semester is a really hard adjustment, and just about everywhere on the face of the planet knows that.

We are doing grad school selection at the moment into a professional training program.

Grades and test scores mean we look at the rest of the application and decide what to do with you next. We use statements about the professional direction, letters of reference, resume material, etc. to decide if we want to interview applicants.

What we have found over the years is some people with the top GPAs etc are personally unsuited to the program and the profession.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Seriously? Most people here are quite happy to get an A-. A- is not GPA-killing. That's a ridiculous way to think.

Depends on who you are and where you go to school.

I took a class or two at the local community college during high school. Since it was extra school I was volunteering to take (so I chose subjects I was good at) and I didn't have a full time job and a family like most of my classmates, getting an A- would have been me slacking off a LOT.

At Smith, for me, anything less than a B+ was usually me slacking off (with two exceptions, but those ended up as pass/fail anyway). Everything else varied-- there were classes I got As or A-s in that I didn't work very hard in, and classes I did work hard in.

But I have a friend who chose classes carefully and worked very hard (and didn't have a whole lot of extracurricular commitments, although she did have an on-campus job)-- She had a foot injury, which affected her ability to dance. She could still dance well enough (and show up/participate enough) to get an A- in ballet, but getting a consistent A was not always possible. The rest of her grades were such that the ballet did, in fact, pull down her GPA- and she still took it. She still managed Magna Cum Laude, about 10 people managed in a class of about 650. So... she didn't exactly have the typical experience.

----

In any case, Cookeit, this is why I suggested waiting a bit before you train with a club outside of college during the year. Going through the whole cycle once gives you a better perspective on when you can afford the time and when you can't. Just been my experience, anyway.

But it will get a bit better.

[epeelion]

Stress from exams, I understand, believe me.

I just find it a wee bit silly that someone's asking for moral support because they might not quite have perfect enough grades. Honestly, one should be able to handle this sort of minor failure. Much, much greater failures will happen in life, whether one wants them to or not, no matter how hard someone works.

[Elendae]

Seriously? Most people here are quite happy to get an A-. A- is not GPA-killing. That's a ridiculous way to think.

I know, I know... I've been told that an A- is perfectly acceptable and that it's still an A, but Kent does not count it as an A... and I'm too much of a perfectionist to not let it bother me. At least this one wasn't in my German class. I was really upset when I got the A- over the summer in German.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Stress from exams, I understand, believe me.

I just find it a wee bit silly that someone's asking for moral support because they might not quite have perfect enough grades. Honestly, one should be able to handle this sort of minor failure. Much, much greater failures will happen in life, whether one wants them to or not, no matter how hard someone works.

Many people go through a major readjustment in the first semester of college. The people who got horrible grades in their competitive high school and ended up at a state school or mid-range private school may be capable of really good grades now. On the other hand, people who got flawless grades in high school and went to better schools often find that very suddenly, they sometimes get Bs.

If it's still a major concern after the first semester- maybe two-- then yes, some deep soul searching ought to be done.

[Cookeit]

UPDATE from the OP:

I got the grade I wanted on my exam, no worries.

[Elendae]

UPDATE from the OP:

I got the grade I wanted on my exam, no worries.

Congrats!

[Morale Officer]

It means you just need to balance them out with A+'s!

Honestly, the only A+ I ever got in college was in fencing! lol!

[catwood1]

Honestly, the only A+ I ever got in college was in fencing! lol!

This post is amazing.

[whiteandbluefencer]

Ahh help!

I am incredibly stressed by this final exam I just took for my finite math class.

What should I do?

Meditate?
Pray?
Eat my weight in ice cream?

No. You should fence... last Spring three of us went and fenced outside in the middle of campus during study days! We took lots of pictures and blew off a lot of steam. It was ridiculous and fun!

Sometimes you just have to find a way to forget for a while. Then you get to work. This is a little late seeing as finals are well over by now but I thought I'd put my two sense in. I totally know the stress of finals, but you have to move on after each one. I couldn't be worried about my Econ final after the fact, because I had to finish writing my 10 page final paper for French and study for my Poli Sci exam. Finals aren't a sprint, they're a marathon. Once it's over, I stop worrying because there's nothing to change it.

Oh, and I don't care about making the Dean's list (well, my college's equivalent), so maybe you shouldn't listen to me. After worrying about my grades all during high school, I got to college and realized that as long as I'm satisfied with my own effort, that I should obsess over my less than satisfactory grades...

I highly recommend slipping your professor some 100 dollar bills and a nice thank you note about how you enjoyed the class this semester. That is sure to make your grade go up.

Tomas

Why didn't you tell me this before... it would have saved me a lot of trouble.

No, really, there is a good piece of advice in this... if you are doing poorly in a class, you should see the professor early and often. Doing just that certainly saved my you-know-what this semester... professors like to know that you care about their class (and your grade).

[Empty Wallet]

No, really, there is a good piece of advice in this... if you are doing poorly in a class, you should see the professor early and often. Doing just that certainly saved my you-know-what this semester... professors like to know that you care about their class (and your grade).

As a professor I am pleased that students enjoy my classes and care about their grades. I especially like it when they care so much about their grades that they work for them, because they ain't going to get them from me any other way.

It is more likely that I will (and can) write a good letter of recommendation for those I know.