College can be a lot of fun. There are fairs, parties, concerts, sports games, performances, and more. In fact, it can be so much fun that it becomes difficult to focus on all the hard parts. You know, sitting through long lectures taking notes, staying up late reading and studying, spending your weekends writing papers.
However, if you don’t keep yourself in check and sacrifice some of those fun activities, you could find yourself really stressing out once you start to fail any of your classes. Many schools will kick you out if you don’t maintain a certain GPA, which means that failing just isn’t an option. If you are in a dangerous position with any of your courses right now, here is what to do if you’re failing classes in college.
Attend Your Professor’s Office Hours
If you are in danger of failing, you should always approach your professor right away to find out exactly why you’re falling so far behind. Most importantly, you want to know if there’s any chance of you passing the class, and what it’s going to take to change the situation. In the end, you should be visiting each and every one of your professors during their office hours at least once per semester.
Find a Study Buddy
For each one of your classes, you will want to have a study buddy. If you have several classes with one person that you tend to get along with, they can be a prime person to study with. This way, you can go over material from different several classes within the same study session. Just make sure that you choose someone who is both reliable and easy to get along with – and make sure that you don’t feel too tempted to socialize with that person rather than study.
Withdraw if You Can
If you are really just hating a class and don’t feel as though you’re ready for it yet, then you may want to try and withdraw from the class completely. Most schools will allow students to withdraw from a class within a certain number of weeks of the semester. It’s almost like having an annulment with the class. That way it won’t show up on your transcripts, and you can go back to it if absolutely necessary in the future.
Hire a Tutor
Sometimes the curriculum isn’t beyond your intelligence; you just need a little bit of assistance in comprehending the concepts right away. In that case, having the help of a tutor can really keep you on track with the pace of the course. Most tutors are relatively affordable, and some even work for the college, so you’re already paying them with your tuition.
Complete Extra Credit Assignments
You may not have the convenience of extra credit if you are no longer an undergraduate. If instead you are earning GW’s masters degree in political science, you may find that many of your professors don’t believe in extra credit. However, if your professor will give you any kind of opportunity to earn back lost credit, then you should definitely take it. It may be a ton of work added to what already feels like a heavy load, but if you want to keep your GPA up, then you may just have to accept it and grind through all the work.
