Bad first semester of college grades...

[renegade7]

Well, just 'grade' really. I finished my first semester with A's and B's in all of my classes, except for chemistry which I scored a D in, leaving me with a rather shitty GPA of 2.5. I have free space in my schedule next year to retake it, since my school offers forgiveness for low grades earned during freshman year, and that is what I plan to do- the D in freshman year will be removed completely from my transcript and there will be no record whatsoever that I had taken that class freshman year. I know my schedule for next semester and everything on it is material I am competent with, so I'm pretty sure I can bring my GPA back up to a reasonable level. I'm also still in good academic standing, I wouldn't be put on academic probation unless I was 2.25 or lower. I know, cutting it a little close, but still.

So my question is, between now and then, do I need to worry about any doors that have been permanently closed off to me? Remember I did not do poorly overall, just in the one course. And according to my advisor I still have my scholarship because it is still half a letter grade higher than my high school GPA (which was, without a doubt, hideous), so that doesn't concern me all that much.

So what I'm really looking to know is, how bad is it really? I mean, I must not be the first person ever to do poorly in his fresman year and pick up later, and the low GPA really was only due to a single class which I'm going to retake for full credit later.

 

[Chromatic Aberration]

While I can't comment on the whole GPA and scholarship issue because I simply never had to take those into account, I experienced some rather hard grade drops from my shift from High School to Upper School (which is comparable to the first year of College) and from there to University.

However, with time I learned how to cope with the increased amount of anything I have to learn, for instance by taking a sufficient amount of time to study for exams and develop some other organizational tricks. My grades shot upwards pretty fast after the first year in both cases. Hence, I'm confident that your grades will get better given time. You just need to get used to it and get a rough idea about the overall difficulty around.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

It's one semester. At worst, it's going to affect about one eighth of your total GPA (assuming you are there for four years). The worst thing that will happen to you (most likely) is that you won't be able to get any more scholarships for a couple of years, assuming you are able to get your GPA back up.

Here's my advice. This semester is behind you. Spending all your time worrying about it isn't going to help you. Just focus on doing well in future semesters (by studying more, getting help from instructors if your grade in a class starts slipping, etc.), and you should be fine.

 

[Tigger1992]

From my experience low grades only impact your ability to get scholarships and the prospect of graduate studies. Also, there are some employers that look at grades at recruitment but that is pretty rare from what I have seen. Once you get your degree and get your first job, the grades that you got in school are almost irrelevant. What is important is that you are always trying to learn while working at your job. Learning how to think critically in school is more important than the memorization of facts.

 

[Comocat]

I got a 2.7 one semester, all Bs and 1 C and lost a merit scholarship. Years later I was accepted to a fairly selective graduate program with full tuition and a stipend. One bad semester doesnt matter, what matters is you say "what the hell am I doing" and do better next semester. The key idea is I only dropped that low once, and got 3.5 - 4.0 until I graduated. Once you get beyond college, GPA only plays a small part in defining your resume. Anything below a 3.0 raises red flags on your work ethic, but between 3 and 4, you can pad it pretty well by with leadership, research, athletics, etc.

 

[Cryo84R]

Hey man, I totally feel you. Been out of school for 10 years. This was my first semester back and it suuuuucked. Totally bombed an accelerated math course. I think if you are going to have a bad one, the first one is best.