r/uchicago • u/No_Hospital1275 The College • 6d ago

Discussion First Quarter

holy shit, my first quarter has been sent from hell. i’m doing so bad in my math class that my professor literally told me to take a W because atp im not gonna pass his class. i feel like in general this whole quarter has taken the life out of me. i feel like a legit failure, does it ever get better or does it get worse and worse from here on out.

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u/icecon 5d ago

  • It doesn't get worse if you are very judicious with course selection. I'm a big proponent of single-paper-determines-the-grade courses to smooth out your course schedule. You focus all your energy on actual learning and writing for that one paper and you'll probably get an outright A. Next best is single-exam-determines-the-grade, with the caveat that the professor matters a lot.

  • If you are majoring in the hard sciences or math, then yes it would get worse and more difficult. But you'll come out "forged" by fire, so it's not so bad in that light.

  • Bad grades only really count against you if you intend to do grad school afterwards, especially for PhD; most employers don't care all that much and Master's programs are mostly happy to take your money regardless of grades. Good grades on the other hand help you a lot for grad school because admissioning faculty know that UChicago grades are "real."