Learning problem

most universities have a counseling office that can help arrange for professional testing and evaluation

 

perhaps she's just really bad at chemistry. Did she have any high school chem?

Best to go see a college counselor on this one.

 

I have a learning disability, in math. I got as far as trig not even knowing. I just knew that it was damned near impossible for me to get anything better than a C in any kind of math class, and I thought I was just plain old stupid. Looking back on it, I just shake my head at myself. I was still getting mostly A in the rest of my classes.

But my first chemistry classes were a disaster. Between the fact that I'd never taken a science class in my life before then, and my difficulties with math, I worked harder for my C's in gen chem 1 and 2 than I did for CALCULUS.

Here's what I'd tell your friend. First, don't automatically assume that chemistry will forcast how well she'll do in any other class. For instance, I did very, very well in every other pre-med class. Mostly A's, a few B's.

Second, most campus's have a student disability department. She should find out whether they have one. After that, many campus's have learning disability testing, and she should go through it. It takes a long time. For me, I was tested on several different days for hours at a time.

If it's found that she does have a learning disability, then she may be eligable for a variety of services that can help her do better in the classes she's having a hard time in. Usually, these services are extra time on tests, taking tests in a distraction free environment, free tutoring in some classes, having notes taken for you, special paper (believe it or not) provided to you by the school (to help you line up numbers - that was one of my major difficulties), and classes to help with study strategy. At a bare minimum, she should take the classes. They were a life saver for me.

Now, all of those services I've listed are really contraversial for those who don't have a learning disability, so if she does have one, and she takes advantage of these services, I advise that she keep her mouth shut about it, except to her professor. It sucks to have to deal with the hostility of your class-mates, on top of having to take the damned class anyway.

I hope this helps,

Nanon

 

I have a learning disability too and I highly recommend going to the educational/counseling services at her school.
Like Nanon said, the educational services can arrange all sorts of accomodations to fit her learning needs, whether it's extra time on exams or private rooms for severe test anxiety, note taking service for writing/hard of hearing, tutoring...you name it.
Your friend should not tell anyone other than professors of her learning needs. It's hard to predict what your friends will do or say if you tell them you have a learning need and need certain accomodations and if you tell one friend about it, they may tell others and pretty soon, word gets around and it can become a nightmare.

There is no stigma attached to getting help and it is better to get help than to not.