Indeed. I took no more than 4 classes plus labs after learning my lesson in freshman year in engineering. Semester hours stayed at 14 hours. Balanced it out by taking 2 summer classes. Even did a minor. What I saw was that taking 5 or 6 classes was just not practical. If one did I noticed that either they would fail miserably or pass and have almost no life. So if you are the type to try to actually enjoy the college experience, take summer courses to lighten up fall and spring.
I probably shouldn't mention it but whatever, It's UofT, and not the one in Texas, It's above the border in the north in the great city of Toronto
Yep, it wasn't practical at all. I never did great in college, but I at least was pulling in B's and a couple of A's every other semester. When I took 5 classes with labs I would end up with C's all the time. It just wasn't worth the stress, so I toned it down and it helped a lot .
I know lots of people that were really smart in high school and just fell off in life. I wasnt dumb but i wanted to live in an immature lala land in my high school years. I struggled in P.E classes cause i didnt want to dress up. Anyways, I made it to the second semester of medical school. Im too stubborn to give up. Community colleges are closer and cheaper but most teachers are very suspect at teaching. I took this university teacher and surprisingly found math fun and easy (my weakest subject)
If you can't pass the first semester of freshman year in college, maybe furthering your education isnt for you. Freshman year is a cake walk compared to the advanced courses you'll be taking junior/senior year. Time to go work in the coal mines son.
Anything more than 14 hours is too much for me. Taking 5 classes for you was probably 15 hours, and considering you are engineering, you were probably doomed to begin with.
This is 100% not true although the OP should hang it up on his wall for extra inspiration. We all mature at different speeds. I screwed up my freshman year and had a college counselor tell me the exact same thing you did. I graduated Magna c*m Laude.
The hardest thing to learn in school is to know when you aren't getting it. When you realize you're not getting it, then you have access to the resources that will help you get it. But knowing is the hard part. Consider these grades to be a signpost that you weren't getting it. Find easier ways to figure that out in the future if it happens again, before the stakes are so high.
Yeah, for me AP classes were a lot harder. In fact, my high school was harder than college so far. College is pretty much just chill all day, relax, have fun. Then you study a few days before the midterm/final and then chill some more. I guess I'm used to "hard" classes since my school was 80% asian and everyone was academically driven. Now I go to UCSD and it's easy but also a lot of asians. My advice for you is: go to CC and if you do well transfer in the future.
Don't listen to any of these people telling you you failed Engineering because you're not smart enough/not cut out for it. You failed because you didn't work hard, that is all. It's as simple as that. I grew up in an educational system where, unlike the American high school system, we always had to work hard to get good grades. You had to study extremely hard to score 90s in exams. I was always at the top of my class. Because of that culture I easily cruised through my first two years of college -- everything actually seemed pretty easy. Guess what, by the time I was in my sophomore year, I had slacked off big time. I thought my brains were better than everyone else's and I could coast through college. I got a rude awakening when I barely scored a C in one class and was lucky enough to earn an incomplete grade in another class (should have failed). No matter how smart you are, you can't coast through college. You have to work hard and spend plenty of quality time outside the classroom studying. You can do anything you set your mind to, whether it be Electrical Engineering or Geophysics, as long as you're determined to do what it takes. Also, don't bite off more than you can chew. You can't expect to take 15 hours of engineering-related classes, work a part time job and get good grades.
Not the end of the world. I did well in high school, coasted through my freshman year of university with nearly perfect grades and than did terribly my sophmore/junior years when I started partying too much. I completely failed 2 classes because I never went to class and didn't even take the finals for them. I managed to pull off B's and C's for my other classes by half-assing them but these were still so below the expectations I had set for myself. This was the low-point of my life and I became depressed because I didn't know if college was worth pursuing. My GPA dropped considerably but it was still salvageable. By my senior year I had to take a hard look at myself..and it was tough seeing my classmates constantly get into graduate school before me but it also motivated me. These past 3 semesters, I've gotten nearly perfect grades in all of my advanced-level classes. I fell into an awesome study group composed of a few Asian/Indian people and those guys work harrddd, which definitely encouraged me to keep up.
What made you decide to go into engineering? Did you take any math tests to qualify for the program? I mean, you had no idea you were that weak in math?
Two Questions 1. What classes did you take? 2. What were your last Classes in High School? I ask because I found the difference between High school calculus and Freshman Calculus to be . . . . quite a bit different. I did not feel my high School properly taught it . . .compared to other students in my class. I felt like through no fault of my own . . i was behind . .because i was simple unexposed to that level of Calculus . . . Rocket River
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That's just grad school at UT, which usually involves recent student visa immigrants that were one in a million (literally) to get to come here on a scholarship and go to school. They basically have to kick a$$ to remain in this country (if they don't get H1B sponsorship job after graduation they still have to go back). Undergrad is pretty different, you have a lot of second generation Asians or those that were born in Asia but grew up in the U.S. (like me) and trust me, we can be as lazy and as much of a f%$k as you guys . Me and my senior year college roommate (an ABC) both barely made it into major sequence (round 2.6 Engineer GPA at the time and in all seriousness, still proud, that's some hard stuff). I knew a Korean friend who was number 3 in his High school and made C's just like me. My Indian neighbor in the dorm next us literally wakes up at 8 p.m. every day freshmen year, I think he still had 2+ years left when I graduated. My brothers roommate straight up flunked out after the first semester also. I also found plenty of white kids actually get some of the top marks and understand the concepts well, as well as have good study habits. Back to thread starter, if you go back to school, as an advice, become friends with people that got the highest scores and get into study groups with them so they can help you with homework and projects. If a class is too hard, don't be ashamed to go talk to professor everyday in his office hours, they do help you if they see you trying. It also doesn't hurt to build that relationship for job and grad school recs. Keep your chin up, we've been there. I thought I was going to be a failure because of my poor grades and not getting any internships (or interviews even) after three years of college. But things started to turn Senior year, large part due to the hard work put in since Jr. year in and out of the class room (student organization leadership positions, getting better grades, and etc.) and I got a really good job offer (and multiple interviews from different companies) before my last , which led to senioritis and now is once again coming back to bite me when I'm thinking of getting my MBA . My roommate graduated with like a 2.8 G.P.A. and couldn't find a job for like 5 months, took some round about paths that included close encounters with Nigerian pirates but now he's working as an engineer making pretty good money. My brother's roommate that flunked out eventually got a degree from another school and is doing pretty well also. Things happen, but the good thing about this country (or Canada which is close enough) is that people tend to forget about the past and get second chances.
