This is the end of my third semester at my university, and all semester long I’ve been struggling with this one course. I’ve put my all into it and have exhausted all means of studying and the grade posted today… and I have a D. My chosen upper college won’t accept anything less than a C, and I have only one chance to remake this grade. If I don’t pull it off next time, then I have to rethink my entire career at this school. Doesn’t sound like much of an issue right? Well the class I failed at is only offered in the fall… So instead of my original deadline to enter my upper college in the fall, I have to push everything back and retake this class. Then hopefully apply for the following spring. I’m normally a straight A student, but this course has really kicked my ass. As of about ten minutes ago, my whole world just came crashing down 
Can you take the equivalent course at your senior college instead of waiting a year? Or is it a requirement for transferring?
If the rest of your grades are straight A’s, you can probably still transfer immediately, assuming you have enough other credits.
In any case, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Very few people manage to get through college without drastically changing their plans.
This is what I would think. At least find out for sure what your options are, and maybe talk to your advisor, before despairing. 
Out of curiosity, if you don’t mind telling us, what was the course, and why did it cause you such difficulty?
yaaa i second thudlows motion. what was the course that left you up shit creek without a paddle?
That sucks. I came very close to being in the same situation with one course this year, but they curved it since it seems the average was a fail!
Talk to your advisor, they might be able to sort something out for you, or let you go on conditionally anyways. I’m taking courses this year for which I don’t officially have the prerequisite, because I had to defer my final and it’s only offered once a year. It’s really no big deal and actually happens all the time, even though the official policy is “you must have passed your prerequisites”.
My school has a policy that you must have a C or better in every core class, while at the same time admitting that they’ll let you graduate with one D on your transcript anyways if the rest of your marks are decent.
Talk to your advisor, talk to the student affairs office, talk to the prof to see if he can help you out, see if there are any supplemental exams that you can re-take without redoing the entire course. Colleges and universities deal with cases like this all the time.
The class is Anatomy and Physiology, and I’m exactly sure what about it is giving me so much trouble. It’s a stadium style lecture course, and you buy the lecture notes beforehand and just fill in anything extra. The notes fill up a 3inch binder, so I appreciate not having to write them all from scratch. Before the exams I’ll review myself and go through the entire pages that are being tested on and I will KNOW it! I know all of the material! But then I get to the exam and you see the questions, and it’s not so much, “Hm… what’s the answer?” but more like, “Hm… What does Dr. Biggers want the answer to be?” It’s like the exam is just one big mind game. I talked to the Professor at the beginning of the semester, and he told me to go to the SI tutoring sessions held for the class, I told him that I couldn’t, they were held during the time I had to be at work. His answer? “Well then you should quit your job.” Annnnnnnd just who’s exactly gonna pay my bills??? I’ve talked to my advisor and asked her was there an online option that i could do next semester, she said no, that my only options were to take it in the summer or fall, and since summer sessions are so fast-paced and I only have the one chance to retake it, that she strongly suggests I wait until fall. My upper college is a Nursing school, and requires you to have the class before they’ll even look at your application.
I feel a little better now, I just wanted to get it out and tell someone before I exploded.
Ugh. I’m so sorry. I’m in a nursing program (last semester starts in January!) so I fully understand the pressure to stay on track. Once you are in you are in a planned program that means if you get less than a C you are out and can reapply for the next year. Sounds just like yours.
I had all As in A&P so if there is anything I can do for you please IM me. I don’t know what I can do, but anything I can is yours. I used silly mnemonics. Those don’t work for everyone, but they did for me.
Yep, I’ll never forget the cranial nerves or their function. Some Say Marry Money But My Brother Says Big Boobs Matter More!
Meagan, this doesn’t help and I don’t mean to sound condensending, but this will probably be one of those notable moments in your life. Sure it does suck. However, you’ll probably benefit more your entire life from this D than from any other grade you ever get at school.
But that doesn’t make your current pickle any easier.
Don’t freak out Meagan. Something very similar happened to me in college. I thought it was the end of the world, it wasn’t. I had to postpone grad school for a year, but in the end it worked out quite well for me.
Thanks for the kind words. I am considerably calmer about the whole thing now, but at the time it was like getting a thousand bricks dropped on me! I’m on a full ride as long as I stay a full time student, and after next semester I will have completed all the classes I need to take for my upper college, so my class list for next fall will look something like this: A&P, palates, jogging, zumba, and another bs class. Yes, exercise classes do count 
My scholarships don’t care what I take, as long as I’m working towards a degree (A&P), and I get a grade in them (and all the exercises classes do give grades). So the bright side of this, next fall I’ll drop 20lbs and raise my GPA at the same time!
Not clear - what are “upper and lower colleges”?
Also wonder if the OP can explain why she thinks identifying and memorizing a bunch of pre-written notes is “learning the material” while accusing the professor of playing mind games by asking questions on the exam that were not planned?
I found this especially curious once I learned the course and the career path - does the OP think that being a nurse will be in any way routine or will it be more like taking the test, thinking on your feet with a lot on the line, all day, every day"?
Wow, did I just get on your bad side today, or what? What exactly did you feel you were accomplishing by shitting your negativity everywhere?
- Lower college = what is here referred to as being in the University itself, Upper college = being in the specific college of your chosen career of study within the University.
- I know the material. I know the content of his lectures, and I memorize his prewritten notes for the subject. I know what I need to know, so why should I have to remember what he said his preferred bathing style was for the exam? Yes, it was on there, and for the record, I knew the answer. Why should there be 10 questions on the exam on the same question, and each has 2 equally great answers that could easily be right, and the set of answers each time is different? It’s a mind game. Why should I need to know that he bought his last four tires from Costco instead of Gateway? Why not_alice, since you’re obviously so damn smart about it?
- I love my pre-nursing classes, I’m excelling in them. I’ve taken care of an injured family member for eight years, and I love doing it. I for damn sure know that my day will almost never be routine. But you tell me one time when you’ve ever, EVER gone to a hospital or clinic and you needed to know what age your nurse’s college professor’s daughter was when she decided pink was her favorite color. Can you?
And just in case you were wondering, she was 8.
I’d imagine imprecise terms for colleges the OP considers more and less desirable.
I say that as a community college student proud of my education, and laying the ground work for something more prestigious. Some self described hick working his way up to a PhD somewhere prestigious would be great personal empowerment. Further it would vindicate and honor the people who’ve taught me a long the way. At all points.
The OP’s phrasing indicated he/she thought the questions were ambiguous, and open to interpretation. I’ve had a few classes like that. I remember an honest to god question “you could read your email with (choose all that apply):
a) outlook
b) outlook express
c) internet explorer
d) folder explorer”
Which I got wrong according to the answer key because the authors of the book apparently never ever heard of web based email. Fortunately my teacher was the reasonable sort when I argued the point.
My first semester I bombed a bunch of classes. I was so mad at myself. Regrouped, and thought about what went wrong, and fixed things. You can do it.
Further you have between now and then to read review what went wrong and adapt to your teacher’s style.
Everyone has setbacks. The school I wish to attend has Calculus as a prereq to even apply. Until last week the highest class I’d completed was algebra I in the eight grade in 1998.
I don’t know it had that prereq until last spring, and had to wait till fall to take Intermediate Algebra. It won’t be until fall of 2012 that I’ll have my ducks in a row enough to apply. Sucks but the greater the challenge the greater the reward.
Thanks This is basically the same speech my boyfriend gave me when I called him near hysterics when the grade posted. Thankfully he’ll be teaching out of the same book, with the same set of lecture notes, next fall so I’ll have all of my materials to get a head start on the next time. It was just such a huge shock for me. I’ve never failed a class, ever, let alone in college. I’m a straight A student and I’ve worked so hard to keep it that way, and this was devastating. One glimmer of hope though: When I retake this class in the fall whatever grade I get the second time around will completely replace this D. So it’ll be like it never even happened! I’ve heard of some other schools averaging the two, and that would really really suck.
not at all, I literally have never heard the terms. junior college/college, 2 year school/4 year school, sure, but lower/upper? Never. My impression at first was the OP is not in the US, maybe this is a colloquialism from Australia or some other English speaking place. That she described the grading system as letter based made me think “US , more likely” but in fact I don’t know if other English speaking places use that grading system, so I can’t conclude for sure where she is.
Maybe it is regionalism in the US, but evn watching a lot of college sports over the years, athletes always come from “junior colleges”, and the schools the teams represented have never been called “upper colleges” as far as I can remember. I’d say that dates back ~35 years.
Well, I can assure you at what maybe are now known as “upper colleges” of the sort I attended, we never had multiple choice questions, and the exams were deliberately vague or provocative so that one was forced to demonstrate mastery of material as opposed to regurgitate facts or demonstrate other basic multiple choice test taking skills.
I can’t wait!
sigh
Just want to make this super duper clear for you, because this seems to be a point you’re stuck on.
I attend a 4 year University here in the US. I’m not saying this is how everyone calls it, I’m specifically using terms that we, here at this University use. Here, when you enter the University itself, you are in “lower college”. When you enter the individual colleges within the University, then you are in your “upper college”.
So, once more: I have just finished my third semester in my University, or “lower college”. Next fall I was supposed to start in my Nursing College here within the University, or my “upper college”. Now because of this fiasco, that date will be pushed back.
Lower college = the University itself
Upper college = the individual college within the University
These are terms that students here at the University use, I apologize if in my stressed state I confused you and you felt the need to pick it apart for meaning that wasn’t there. I hope it’s clear now.
Not a negative question at all, very sincere. I actually have a very good friend who is in a similar program at the local community college, intending to move on to be a nurse.
She posts on FB her unfettered feeling about her exams, not unlike yours. And I really wonder the same thing - is she really learning? I am glad she is persevering, but I am honestly surprised at the level of education being proffered, given the nurses I have known in my life.
That being said, I don’t know for you or my friend what your desired licensing level is, and I suppose there is a wide range of roles and responsibilities and education needed for each.
Well, so that is what I mean - where is “here”? If the US, than what state? I honestly never heard those terms before.
I believe you memorized it, even perfectly. I just don’t really think that memorizing for an exam is the same as “mastery of the material”. That’s a general statement, nothing specific to do with you.
LOL I would shake that professor’s hand if I ever met him! That is fantastic!
Why? To see if you are really sure of the material, to see if you are just memorizing it. it is not perfect at that, but it got your attention! That is how statistical sampling in a lot of areas, including devising standardized tests (which I suppose you will take eventually for your nursing license) are done.
I Love Love LERV that you jsut described that to me, I am seriously impressed with the professor.
Well, assuming you are not being facetious, and you probably are not being so, sometimes stuff like that creeps in to see if you were both at the lecture, and paying attention.
For example, earlier this year, I got a traffic ticket and had to do online traffic school. The school I chose was called something like “Comedy driving school”.
There were many mini lectures by video, and then after each one was a quiz. On each quiz was at least one question related to a joke that was told on the video - had nothing to do with driving, but everything to do with showing I actually sat through the video.
Your prof seems like a swell guy to me! I think I can trust him being effective at his role in turning out nurses
No, but I remember the weather the day one of my professor’s daughters was killed in an Amtrak train derailment, and that was ~ 30 years ago. He too has since passed himself, but when I was in contact with him, it was comforting to him that I remembered.
More importantly, I think the professor is not only verifying you were there and paying attention, but teaching you what is probably a very important skill or two for nurses, and that is observation of pretty much everything because s/he may need to report it to doctors or others in order to allow them to decide if it was important or not.
Yes, nurses have some judgment leeway, but they are also the eyes and ears of the doctor, and you won’t always know what the doctor will want to know or why.
Not only that, but you will have a lot more interaction with a patient’s family or significant others than a doctor, so it may be up to you to notice little things like that that can mean a lot to the comfort and mindset of the family and/or patient.
I am not a nurse - but my gf is a licensed psychologist in an institutional setting, and these kinds of things come up all the time with the staff there. I admit they are guesses, but they are my educated guesses/answers to your questions. If you want to run them by your professor and ask if they are good skills for a nurse to have and if so, if that is in part the reason he has such info in his lectures and questions on the exams, by all means feel free. If you do, I hope you will share his answers with us!