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You can withdraw if you want. Do you know what you would have to change to maintain the B? 57% is abysmal. What went wrong?
If you can maintain the B I would stick with it. What is your current GPA?
If you can maintain the B I would stick with it. What is your current GPA?
Stick with it if you can. Having a B is not awful. But dropping it wouldn't be the end of the world either. Just remember that these courses are weed-outclasses so you need to be able to keep up with the material. And don't let one W turn into more. They can be red flags.
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@hyrai Your testing average is a 71.67 with a recent failure (assuming weight is equal) and your scores are all over the place. Content in Organic I can vary drastically, but if you're looking to lock down on your performance then you're not doing it with these results. Going to go for a lark here and state that you are bad at projecting results in classes that you identify as being difficult. Think about why you got a "C" in that one class outside of it being a solo freak case because from an outsider's perspective you have a 57 here which is just unwarranted considering your testing average is 71.67 with an SD of 14.05 over three scores. Was the 85 a fluke? Or was it what you are capable of in the future? These are questions that we cannot answer for you and that we won't be held accountable for as you go forward into harder and more rigorous classes into the future.
The only thing SDN can really provide here is armchair analysis, you are the one who has to deal with the ramifications of any and all decisions. Some people are more able to go for broke than other students e.g. take summer semesters and dedicate more time into switching things up over other students due to having more financial support. Other students are working full time while taking a full time course load and have their own sets of problems. If you can afford it, my advice would always be to go for the most conservative options e.g. treat situations as if they have the worst outcomes and then move accordingly. In the case where a withdrawal is a guaranteed option and your performance on the final is variable with a possible 57~58 being within one SD of mean performance, then I will almost always go for the drop out option because it is the most objective recommendation. However, even if you drop out there is no guarantee that you are going to learn what went wrong or what is going wrong when it comes to your end game performance. There are no guarantees in life from either end that you will be successful even if you take the safer option. There are lessons to be learned from this outside of score performance that could contribute to you being better at tests later on down the road, but whether or not this is true is something that is wholly speculative.
I'm mostly concerned that you've already cashed in early with respect to counting your attendance and homework as part of your overall GPA. For that to account for your GPA being an 80 it means that the school is giving you a 30% buffer. You ruling out the added pressure of the final for Organic bothers me considering you had a performance issue in the past. In addition, you cashing in your 30% homework & participation bonus at this point indicates to me that you are afraid and perhaps don't have the mental grit to push forward through this situation to achieve your high of an 85 and will hit that low 57 which will have negative performance implications in your mind moving forward if you maintain this results oriented mindset instead of being able to prioritize the material first.
I think that normalizing test performance is a maturity aspect in terms of getting adjusted to school and you will reach that point sooner rather than later. Pre-med can punishing because you have less time than other fields to grow because your performance is always being scrutinized and sometimes people understand how to study at a point where it is too late and a lot of their core classes are already locked in.
The only thing SDN can really provide here is armchair analysis, you are the one who has to deal with the ramifications of any and all decisions. Some people are more able to go for broke than other students e.g. take summer semesters and dedicate more time into switching things up over other students due to having more financial support. Other students are working full time while taking a full time course load and have their own sets of problems. If you can afford it, my advice would always be to go for the most conservative options e.g. treat situations as if they have the worst outcomes and then move accordingly. In the case where a withdrawal is a guaranteed option and your performance on the final is variable with a possible 57~58 being within one SD of mean performance, then I will almost always go for the drop out option because it is the most objective recommendation. However, even if you drop out there is no guarantee that you are going to learn what went wrong or what is going wrong when it comes to your end game performance. There are no guarantees in life from either end that you will be successful even if you take the safer option. There are lessons to be learned from this outside of score performance that could contribute to you being better at tests later on down the road, but whether or not this is true is something that is wholly speculative.
I'm mostly concerned that you've already cashed in early with respect to counting your attendance and homework as part of your overall GPA. For that to account for your GPA being an 80 it means that the school is giving you a 30% buffer. You ruling out the added pressure of the final for Organic bothers me considering you had a performance issue in the past. In addition, you cashing in your 30% homework & participation bonus at this point indicates to me that you are afraid and perhaps don't have the mental grit to push forward through this situation to achieve your high of an 85 and will hit that low 57 which will have negative performance implications in your mind moving forward if you maintain this results oriented mindset instead of being able to prioritize the material first.
I think that normalizing test performance is a maturity aspect in terms of getting adjusted to school and you will reach that point sooner rather than later. Pre-med can punishing because you have less time than other fields to grow because your performance is always being scrutinized and sometimes people understand how to study at a point where it is too late and a lot of their core classes are already locked in.
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@hyrai The "claim" here that you seem to not understand is that no one can guarantee a performance whether it is their own or someone else's performance. This is not subjective, it is objective. The reason why there is a process of preparation whether it is studying on your own, doing office hours, and getting a tutor is because you are attempting to establish multiple hedges against a variety of risks that can culminate into a single bad outcome. But the reason why you have to be diligent is because you can't ensure that a bad outcome won't occur, you can only do your best to get as close as possible to that point as you think is feasible. There is nothing "midway" about this, it applies to everyone.
Not sure why you're typing about being positive about your position. You are neither accurate, nor precise. Your scores are dramatically scattered and I'm not quite sure where you want to go with this class, but in all likelihood it is not going to be a score that helps you break a 3.384. If the goal is actually breaking above a 3.384 with this class, then you need to do some serious calibration. I told you that my advice is conservative, I'm not sure you understand what that means because you seem to reinforce that you are doing all this prep work to make a clutch performance. A conservative estimate is one that rules out Hail Mary or Jesus Take the Wheel moments. If you could have done it, then you would have done it already. Is this approach accurate? Not always. Is this approach precise? Yes.
If you have difficulty understanding someone else's commentary don't take it defensively and don't take it personally. I apologize for going overboard with statistics, but currently more than half my free time is spent compiling research results on Excel and I feel obligated to provide a follow up to respond to someone who misinterprets someone pointing out their score spread to be subjective and personal rather than objectively pointing out that you have high variance and you're far away from your target, therefore there is high risk that you will be disappointed with the final results.
Not sure why you're typing about being positive about your position. You are neither accurate, nor precise. Your scores are dramatically scattered and I'm not quite sure where you want to go with this class, but in all likelihood it is not going to be a score that helps you break a 3.384. If the goal is actually breaking above a 3.384 with this class, then you need to do some serious calibration. I told you that my advice is conservative, I'm not sure you understand what that means because you seem to reinforce that you are doing all this prep work to make a clutch performance. A conservative estimate is one that rules out Hail Mary or Jesus Take the Wheel moments. If you could have done it, then you would have done it already. Is this approach accurate? Not always. Is this approach precise? Yes.
If you have difficulty understanding someone else's commentary don't take it defensively and don't take it personally. I apologize for going overboard with statistics, but currently more than half my free time is spent compiling research results on Excel and I feel obligated to provide a follow up to respond to someone who misinterprets someone pointing out their score spread to be subjective and personal rather than objectively pointing out that you have high variance and you're far away from your target, therefore there is high risk that you will be disappointed with the final results.
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OP I think you want to take a serious look at what happened to cause you to get a 57 on that test. Did you study the same amount of time as the other tests? Do you understand how to study for mechanisms now? From what I remember of OCHEM 1 you will almost certainly have a mechanism heavy test coming up.
There certainly is a lack of precision with your test scores. Only you can evaluate what made you fall short and whether you have the time and ability to rectify it this semester. I would caution you in the future to make sure that you find ways of testing yourself and gauging your progress when it comes to the material. The worst time to realize that you do not have the material down is during the test. If you use this poor grade as a way to reevaluate your learning style, and develop new techniques for measuring progress and, in particular, dealing with OCHEM mechanisms, you will be a lot better off.
If you decide to stay in OCHEM, you'll want to study OCHEM like nobody's business. A private tutor will definitely help, but make sure you are spending as much time as you possibly can studying the material on your own and using your tutor to clarify confusion not to reteach you all of the information. Judging from your scores I think with a ton of hard efficient studying you could pull a B in the class.
There certainly is a lack of precision with your test scores. Only you can evaluate what made you fall short and whether you have the time and ability to rectify it this semester. I would caution you in the future to make sure that you find ways of testing yourself and gauging your progress when it comes to the material. The worst time to realize that you do not have the material down is during the test. If you use this poor grade as a way to reevaluate your learning style, and develop new techniques for measuring progress and, in particular, dealing with OCHEM mechanisms, you will be a lot better off.
If you decide to stay in OCHEM, you'll want to study OCHEM like nobody's business. A private tutor will definitely help, but make sure you are spending as much time as you possibly can studying the material on your own and using your tutor to clarify confusion not to reteach you all of the information. Judging from your scores I think with a ton of hard efficient studying you could pull a B in the class.
