stress

Panicking about marks and other fun stuff about UofT!!1!one!!: Part Two

Hi,
I got my BCH210 mark back and I got a 62…it’s worth 35% of my mark. I’m freaking out and about to have a mental breakdown, I’m even crying as I write this. Should I drop it? It’s part of my subject post. Plus my mom is gonna be so pissed if I drop it…AHH and I might drop HMB265 too…I don’t know what to do, please please please help.

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hey there,

Alright, lemme tell you a story. I was in my first year, minding my own business in first semester. Everything was going swimmingly. Then, the first midterm test came around for Chemistry – bam. 47%. I’d failed. I’d FAILED a test. I hadn’t failed a test since grade 4 in French conjugation when I got 0/10 and the teacher pulled me aside to ask me if I was okay. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I cried – a lot.

That panicking stopped when I took a second to assess my options. These are the ones I came up with: a) drop out of school and become a scary hermit in the woods of Northern Ontario b) switch programs or c) do better.

The way it shook out is that I picked b) and c). I did my best to pass the course and then I switched to a program that was better suited for me. And now I couldn’t care less about that midterm. Actually, I’m glad it happened to me, because now there’s a chance it might be of some use to you.

You can still very easily pass that class – you’ve only forfeited 13.3% of your final mark, giving you plenty of opportunity to make it up. Plus, in my experience, profs who give super hard midterms tend to give easier final exams.

I’d say it’s probably too late in the semester to drop the course. What I would do is buckle down, finish BCH210 and HMB265 and do as well as you possibly can. Then over the Christmas break, when you’re a bit more relaxed and have time to think about this properly, make a decision about whether you want to stick to the courses you’ve got next semester, maybe drop some extra-curricular commitments you’ve got going on, or make whatever other changes you need to to make next semester a little easier.

Just trust me that this isn’t worth crying over, and also, that you don’t owe anyone anything; not your mom or the school or anyone. You owe yourself a happy university experience, and it’s up to you to figure out how to get that.

Good luck,

aska

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