Remember studying is like an investment analogy. Sometime, you will invest in a bad stock and the best thing to do is drop it. This article talks about getting rid of the bad stock. Just picture that you are in your second year of college and things are becoming serious. You are starting to take core courses of your program and the days of 101s and 102s are over. The first test score in one of your mandatory courses is so bad that you cry over it and you can see that it is only going to get worse.

Almost every student faces a situation where they are struggling in a course and every test or assignment is only lowering their GPA. That is the true college experience. It is a moment of realization that we are not super humans and sometimes we fail and it is okay.

When to start worrying?

Every college, program, course and student is different. However, it is easy to spot when things are going bad. Your first few tests in a course will make it clear whether you are doing well or poorly in it. Don’t waste your energy denying or hiding the fact that you might not do well in the course. If you are failing badly and the deadline to drop the course is approaching, it is a good time for some decision making. Should you drop the course or risk getting a bad grade on your transcript and hurting your GPA?

“The hardest choices require the strongest wills,” – Thanos

Assessing the situation and making the decision vs panicking

when things do not go our way we panic. Panicking reduces your chances to make the rational decision. Instead, asses the situation by noticing all the external and internal factors you are facing. Here are some questions to help you get started.

– Is it the only course you are struggling with?

– Are you going through some unforeseen circumstances at the moment?

– Are your friends struggling as well?

– Is the professor known for making the course more difficult?

– Do you see yourself not being able to make a come back?

– Are you taking too much course load that semester?

– Can you realistically pull yourself up to a required grade by end of the course?

– Is the course affecting your other courses?

– Is there a number of courses you can fail before you are removed from your program?

– Is retaking the course expensive?

– Would a “withdraw” be exempt from your GPA?

Add any other questions you can think of because answering these questions will help you make the right decision. Specifically, if you answer YES to most of the questions above then dropping the course will be the right way to go.

Decide and stop over thinking!

Don’t waste your valuable time creating “what-ifs” scenarios. What if I study really hard from now on? What if I ace the final exam? What if the professor bell curves the final grade. These thoughts are very delusional. After accessing your situation, make a decision. Let’s say you decide to drop the course based on the questionnaire above, go a head and drop the course, period.

Real talk

This article supports dropping the course over failing or getting bad grades. Dropping courses is consider “dishonoring”, “giving up”, “finding an easy way out” or “being a failure” but none of these are real – definitely not as real as a big fat “F” on your transcript. Shame and guilt from choosing to drop a failing course will go away but the grade on your transcript is there forever.

Don’t be too hard on yourself for making a right decision. Relieve yourself, focus on the other courses then go back next semester.

Sometimes, failure is an option. Not a good one, but not an unrecoverable one. It can even be painfully beneficial if you’re honest with yourself, and what you must do to recover and prevent such from happening again. Failure analysis is part of life.

Best of luck and hope you don’t find yourself in this situation too often.