Failed Exams: Dealing with the Fear of Impact on Degree Progression

[JesseC]

I haven't got my grades yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'd outright failed one of my January exams and not done particularly well on 2 others. (Took 5 in total) I know the reason this happened, but I won't go into it because its a bit of a story.

I also know a typical physics degree of the type I'm taking will have around 40 exams in total, so just one doesn't seem particularly important, but it really does dent my confidence. Started to worry about whether I've put my degree progression or expected grade (currently 1st) in jeopardy. Especially annoying when I've been achieving consistently high grades for the last 2 years.

Anyone else here gone through a degree failing/almost failing a few courses and get through ok?

 

[Pengwuino]

Yah don't worry about it. Just study harder and better.

 

[discrete*]

It happens sometimes. My advice would be to never let an opportunity to learn from a poorly done exam pass you by. Every exam that I get back, I look over the exercises that I got wrong and find out why I did and how to do them right. The more poorly I do on the exam, the more work I put into learning the material that I had trouble with. I've noticed that throughout the years I'm have better grades overall; something I attribute to this. Good luck.

 

[JesseC]

Cheers Pengwuino + discrete*

I'm doing my best to not worry about it and take a pragmatic approach, basically going to work much harder this semester.

 

[evra]

i failed a course in my first semester due to loads of problems beyond my control but i always like blaming myself. trust me, i heard sleepless nights and was really discouraged. i was amongst the best students in the other semesters after realising my mistakes and pieces of adive from elders and this noble forum as well. i will advice you to increase your coffee bill, from school to your home, reduce socialising, be yourself, always look up, try to make your teachers your mentors, sit-up, tight-up and finally read! read! read! to the max. you can make it bro, if i can. i should just tell you how i struggled to be there. so please, don't worry and forget it all and do it well this time. Nothing is difficult until you convince yourself it is so. Consider the demanding subjects/courses as challenges. if you are someone that like girls is better your stop or reduce because it will waste your time. it nearly killed me. so let this be useful to you.

regards

 

[Cudi1]

^ good advice by evra, my downfall was meeting a girl and eventually started neglecting my studies. I completely left this girl and i now know that balancing girls and school is really hard.

 

[Ryker]

Are you guys insane or just trolling? You're actually advising someone to stay away from girls and not get involved in flicks/relationships? I'm sorry, but you need to learn what's important in life.

 

[hitmeoff]

It is a lil over the top to suggest to someone not to socialize or date. But what I think the advice was to have a little bit of self control and balance.

You certainly don't want to waste ALL of your time on just socializing. Its kinda like drinking, nothing wrong with having some fun on Friday and Saturday nights, but you might want to check yourself if you are drunk 24/7.

I will say that college (especially when you are young) is as much about getting your academic education as it is about getting a life skills education, which definitely includes socializing and dating, part of the learning is to learn how to balance both and not let one overshadow the other.

 

[evra]

ryker, am sorry but you are getting it all wrong; i will really like to refer you to what hitmeoff wrote. no man can be stop from dating or socialising but it all have its time. the college education is the most important art of someone's life. i know what i went through to realize my mistakes. you can never cope if you are betrayed at an instant, you can never read if she visits you, you can never concentrate if you are in situation of "is she going to accept me or not" and finally ryker, if you have a serious relationship before college which i never got, keep it an stick to it. don't waste yur time on looking for oters for the meantime.

 

[xGAME-OVERx]

Are you guys insane or just trolling? You're actually advising someone to stay away from girls and not get involved in flicks/relationships? I'm sorry, but you need to learn what's important in life.

Doesn't everyone have different things that are important in their lives, different priorities?

For me, science/education is definitely more important, and for evra and Cudi1 it sounds like education is at least as important as socialising.

 

[Ryker]

ryker, am sorry but you are getting it all wrong; i will really like to refer you to what hitmeoff wrote. no man can be stop from dating or socialising but it all have its time. the college education is the most important art of someone's life. i know what i went through to realize my mistakes. you can never cope if you are betrayed at an instant, you can never read if she visits you, you can never concentrate if you are in situation of "is she going to accept me or not" and finally ryker, if you have a serious relationship before college which i never got, keep it an stick to it. don't waste yur time on looking for oters for the meantime.

evra, you and hitmeoff are saying two different things, and while I completely agree with what hitmeoff wrote, I think your advice is not fit for someone who wants to live a well-balanced life. It's not black and white, and while some kids entering college go into the extreme of partying all the time, you seem to be advocating for the other one, even though both are just as detrimental. I'm not trying to pick on you, but the greatest majority of people are not kept warm by books, and someone listening to such partisan advice cound quickly spin into the living-for-grades spiral.

Doesn't everyone have different things that are important in their lives, different priorities?

For me, science/education is definitely more important, and for evra and Cudi1 it sounds like education is at least as important as socialising.

I'm not saying education is not important, far from it. I actually think it's really important, as well, but that doesn't mean saying that's all that matters for a significant chunk of your life is giving good advice. And I completely agree that everyone has different priorities, but this thread was started on the topic of dealing with a bad grade. How do you get from one bad grade to completely foregoing girls and socialising, if not by being totally one-dimensional?

I don't really care who does what, but if you are giving advice, you need to at least see where the one who asks for it is coming from. As for Cudi1's advice, looking at it again, I might have misinterpreted what he was saying, so apologies to him. My "rant" doesn't seem to apply to his words.

 

[xGAME-OVERx]

evra, you and hitmeoff are saying two different things, and while I completely agree with what hitmeoff wrote, I think your advice is not fit for someone who wants to live a well-balanced life. It's not black and white, and while some kids entering college go into the extreme of partying all the time, you seem to be advocating for the other one, even though both are just as detrimental. I'm not trying to pick on you, but the greatest majority of people are not kept warm by books, and someone listening to such partisan advice cound quickly spin into the living-for-grades spiral.

I'm not saying education is not important, far from it. I actually think it's really important, as well, but that doesn't mean saying that's all that matters for a significant chunk of your life is giving good advice. And I completely agree that everyone has different priorities, but this thread was started on the topic of dealing with a bad grade. How do you get from one bad grade to completely foregoing girls and socialising, if not by being totally one-dimensional?

I don't really care who does what, but if you are giving advice, you need to at least see where the one who asks for it is coming from. As for Cudi1's advice, looking at it again, I might have misinterpreted what he was saying, so apologies to him. My "rant" doesn't seem to apply to his words.

I do agree that a balanced life is usually the only one where a person can excel, I have witnessed the apparent paradox of people working too hard to get good grades. I've also said before that one must find ones own balance, and that is something that takes time - I think that's why a lot of (UK) universities do not count first year grades towards the overall degree classification.

I also agree that one bad grade does not justify complete social isolation. May I ask what the "living-for-grades spiral" is?

To answer the OP's question, it shouldn't be a problem in the grander scheme of things, and it certainly shouldn't affect your future career, and definitely not your degree classification, if you don't make a habit of it. I have some rather embarrassing marks on my transcript, mostly in Organic Chemistry...

 

[evra]

to you all that are standing against what i wrote, maybe you miss understood me which i am feeling bad about myself of. i shouldnot stand here telling you who i am or where i imerged from as it would be rediculous but its important to share my bad experience with someone in the same foot. i can't study without a girl! but what i want o put across is; limiting it will do you a world of good and sticking to the one you have, so as to save you the time from uping and downing. for the part of socialisation, i don't mean what you are thinking. all i meant and wanted to stress on was that "limitation", self planning, avoid giving more time to other things than your books and classes. if you have better methods fine, share them with us. you can do all your "extra-curricular activities" on fridays and saturdays then back to work on sundays. do that for your studies and look at your rapid development. it is working for me!
i'am sorry if it is bad as an advice but that's what i got. University education is not only making good grades but also learning how to learn.
Thanks

 

[Ryker]

I guess I did in fact misunderstand you if you only meant limiting and not completely denying yourself from meeting people and socializing, so sorry about that. But as for "uping and downing", I still think it's a part of life and not something to be actively avoided.

 

[JesseC]

Somewhat overwhelming amount of replies today :D haha! Thanks for the replies.

Glad to hear some other people got a few bad grades too and coped with it!

I thought I had the social life/work balance well struck already as it got me through the first two years fine. Had to reassess that balance recently, and I've decided to work a lot harder to make up for the exams I've failed. Hopefully it'll pay off and my grades will even out again at the end of the year.

Besides, I've set my sights on doing a Ph.D. and have become a lot more committed to physics than I was 2 years ago, so it makes sense for me to work harder. Like to think I got a lot of the drinking out of the way in 1st year too! Perhaps failing an exam or two was just the wake up call I needed.

 

[Cudi1]

ye to specify, its whatever works for you I'm still learning but relationships just take time away from me( I'm not the best in managing time). Hope the best for you Jesse C, and to clarify if you can balance then by all means date as many girls as you want.

 

[eXorikos]

I failed for every exam in my first year at university. Now I'm an average master student (a year behind on schedule) and working to get good enough grades for e PhD position (which is difficult to come by). Everything depends on how you now react. I've seen people do better than me in our first year who dropped out in their second year.

Don't let those failures get into your head. Focus on the good exams. You have shown that you are able to pass and you say you know what happened at the other exams. As long as you analyse your mistakes correctly you will make it. I've heard people blaming professors or people in their environment, and they failed again, because they were the problem. By which I don't mean that your environment is no factor when studying.

 

[Vulgar]

You should consider learning at a university the same as going to work. If you work on your classes 8 hours a day (that includes going to classes and learning by yourself), begin at 8 or 9 and stop at 17h or alike, from mon-friday, you should be fine, and there is still plenty of time to do other things. When you need a lot more time than this, you probably are following something that doesn't suit you.

 

[flyingpig]

I have a chemistry exam that I know I failed, it's okay you will get over it soon.

 

[evra]

Don't let those failures get into your head. Focus on the good exams. You have shown that you are able to pass and you say you know what happened at the other exams. As long as you analyse your mistakes correctly you will make it. I've heard people blaming professors or people in their environment, and they failed again, because they were the problem. By which I don't mean that your environment is no factor when studying.

I don't think you are referring to us as failures. Do you know what it means to cal someone that name?

 

[Ryker]

I don't think you are referring to us as failures. Do you know what it means to cal someone that name?

He's not, look up the word failure in a dictionary.

 

[eXorikos]

I don't think you are referring to us as failures. Do you know what it means to cal someone that name?

I am obviously referring to the exams he failed. Learn to read.