Unhappy with GPA

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With serious academic problems on this forum, I feel mine is trivial in comparison. Neverthelss, I have to say it. I am a junior in college, have a 3.00 GPA, and am very unhappy with it. I am unhappier still because I know I can do far better, but something holds me back. It’s not that I’m not smart enough to do the work, but a variety of factors: work ethic, not understanding directions clearly, etc. The greatest problem, I find, is the stigma of getting help. This is an embarrassing problem to admit.

I’m not asking for sympathy, but I feel I can do better, and this whole stigma thing is part of what’s holding me back. Thoughts?

Honestly, GPA doesn't mean squat outside of eligibility for student aid.

My client (who's an attorney) honestly says that if he had to do it over again, he would have spent less time hitting the books and more time hitting the keg....those who were socially connected had more to show for their college time than those who got the good grades.

Once you start working, nobody is going to care if you graduated with honors...they'll look to your work record.

I should have mentioned this in my OP, but part of the reason why I am so worried about this is because I am looking at grad school. Not right after graduation, but two or three years after that. I feel I can benefit in the long-run from a graduate degree, even if it's just to get more rewarding work.

Fortunately, I feel I can make it in the work world. I have marketable skills that have nothing to do with college. I just want to compete academically, especially while I'm in college and can do nothing else but compete.

It depends on the grad school program you're looking at, but I got into one in my desired program at a large, respectable state university with a 3.17 undergrad GPA. If you're looking to work for a few years after graduation, that looks even better if you have a borderline GPA. I started 4 years after undergrad, but honestly that was longer than I really needed to take.

Seconded. Incidentally I also took off 4 years between undergrad and grad school, and grad school admissions folks at the schools I got accepted to told me specifically that the work experience I had really set my application above most of the others. Although I think it matters what kind of job you get; I worked in R&D in a biotech company so it was still very much related skillwise with what I would be doing in grad school.

Though being in my 7th year now, I'm pretty much all about grad school now, heh! Amazon, which program are you in?

7 years holy hell that is raw, what program are you in?!

I initially planned on going straight into a Ph.d after I finished my master's (2 years) but I'm seriously reconsidering that and I'm just finishing my first semester

I'm in a behavior analysis M.S. program right now.

omg first semester wow!! Barring calamitous acts of God, I should be getting my Ph.D. in Genetics in the spring. Man I can't wait to get out!

If you're smart enough to get a 3.00 GPA, you're smart enough to do better if you want. I got a 2.9 in community college (With dropping a lot of difficult classes) and when I went to a 4 year school, had a panic attack the first week over not being able to handle the work and getting made fun of for my appearance by girls in class. So I can't feel sorry that the rich wants to get richer

Congratulations! The schooling may have been a b***h, but God, that Ph.D is so in demand right now.

Perhaps we are touching on the same issue. I believe most people are naturally intelligent, but our education system caters only to a few of them. I think this is more true in primary and secondary education, but higher education can do more to accommodate students.

i confirm that Gpa plays a small role for grad school (well, if you don't have extremely low one of course). try to find lab/research experience during undergrad, that values more plus you'll be sure if you want to do it. besides experience gre scores are important.

Thanks! Oddly enough, I think I need a bit of a break from science and do something else for a little while, though hopefully I can put the degree to good use at some point.


I also had this problem a lot when I was an undergrad. Eventually I just broke down and asked for help. There's no such thing as a stupid question (as long as it's honest, heh), and asking for help doesn't mean that you're dumb or lazy or anything like that. What it does mean is that you're smart enough to recognize that you have your limits, just like everybody else does. Of course I try to do as much as I can before asking for help, but once I've spent the time and effort and still not get anywhere, that's when I ask for help.

In high school, I was in the advanced (best) classes and only struggled in math and science because I'm sub-par in both. In the other classes, I got mostly As and Bs with the occasional C, and that's despite getting bullied and being suicidally depressed. In community college, I excelled in the english and writing and liberal arts classes, didn't do too bad in math because I was taking College Algebra instead of Pre-Cal. Still struggled in science. But I feel like I peaked in community college.

From my brief experiences with university, it's taught at an AP level. How students who were no better than myself in high school manage to not only take 5 classes, but pass all of them with a 3 GPA or higher, is beyond me. I'm not a dumb guy, but I felt dumb in those classes. Add on top of it not being able to concentrate or understand certain things, and having a boatload of work every day in 5 classes, and I don't understand how other Aspies are able to take 5 classes, do well, and go on to grad school.

I'm wondering if in my situation, I'm a low-functioning Aspie, not socially, but academically.

Nah, therange, college is just hard. And it's not just a function of learning the material, but also learning how to learn the material. I was really good at math, taking first year calculus as a junior in high school. But when I took multivariable calculus two years later, I did considerably more poorly. Similarly, I got an A+ in introductory chemistry, but nearly failed out of organic chem the following year. It just seemed so foreign to me, because I didn't know how to learn it. Maybe a whole variety of factors contributed to the poorer performance: a new situation and location, bad instructors, less individualized attention, the speed of the class, etc. etc.. I think you'd be unfairly beating yourself up about your past university performance if you think it's because you're "just dumb" or "low-functioning" or something like that.

At any rate, life is all about learning and growing, about improving yourself, and not about comparing yourself to others. Compare yourself to how you used to be, instead, and marvel at how much you've grown in the meantime. Besides, people who are successful 100% of the time and never have an unfortunate moment lack wisdom... and lack entertaining stories to tell the kids. *hugs*

Thanks for the advice, and for the emotional support!

Thanks for the advice, and for the emotional support!