Hey everyone! I'm getting ready for my interview at Tuskegee next week and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to explain why I had to repeat a course? I am re-taking biochem, and in this case the teacher was a notoriously difficult one that always has a very low average, and I took the class because it was the only one offered, against my advisors....well, advice. I ended up getting a D, but I don't want to tell the interviewers that I didn't do well in the class because he wasn't good at teaching the material and everyone else did poorly as well.
explaining repeated courses during interview
- Thread starter cosenk
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Hi! It's just my opinion but if I were you I would say the truth in nicer way like you took long time to get used to his particular teaching style or Your typical studying method wasn't really suitable for Biochem subject or something... Its just my idea so hopefully it gives you some idea 
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I agree with ^^^. Take responsibility for your grade. I think it will be a red flag if you don't. Everyone at some point has awful professors. I withdrew from Organic Chemistry 1 because of it but it was still my fault. Just turn it into a story about how you've improved your study habits or some other type of learning experience. Good luck!
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I would avoid talking about teaching style or teacher difficulty altogether. Yes, these situations do crop up, but giving that as your reason is going to come across dofferently. If they ask (and I do say if, they may not ask) I would just own up and say you Did poorly the first time around and so are retaking it and
(I'm assuming) doing much better.
I know there's bad and/or difficult teachers out there, but keep in mind that these are strangers who are getting their first impression of you. You want to present yourself as somebody who takes ownership of both success and failure. If they really press, I'd say go ahead and say you had difficulty with the way the matrial was presented the first time around. But never blame the teacher. You were still responsible for the grade.
Vet school is difficult. There will be difficult teachers there too. They will want to know what you do in spite of that difficult material. That said, a D isn't going to just condemn you. Plenty of people have been admitted after retaking a course. Just follow up with your success on the retake.
(I'm assuming) doing much better.
I know there's bad and/or difficult teachers out there, but keep in mind that these are strangers who are getting their first impression of you. You want to present yourself as somebody who takes ownership of both success and failure. If they really press, I'd say go ahead and say you had difficulty with the way the matrial was presented the first time around. But never blame the teacher. You were still responsible for the grade.
Vet school is difficult. There will be difficult teachers there too. They will want to know what you do in spite of that difficult material. That said, a D isn't going to just condemn you. Plenty of people have been admitted after retaking a course. Just follow up with your success on the retake.
Thank you for your replies! I agree, I am definitely going to take ownership of my grade. I know that there will be teachers like that in vet school too, so it definitely won't help to just seem like someone who blames the teacher. I definitely won't be doing that, but I like the advice of taking responsibility, admitting that I just didn't get the material the first time and then use my current success in the class (which I am doing much better in) as proof that I can adjust to different learning environments and learn from my mistakes. Great responses, thank you!
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If you did any research or volunteer experience that used the skills you learned in biochem, you can use that to bolster the positives. I had a bad grade on one of my prerequisites as well. I decided not to retake it because it met the minimum, but I still had to explain why the grade was so bad. But I also worked on a research project that used a lot of the concepts taught in that class. It allowed me to show that I did have a good grasp of the material, despite my less than stellar grade. If you have anything like that, I would definitely talk about it.
