My grades have been hovering, over the past 3 years, at about 3.8ish cCPA (all pre-reqs). Last semester’s “B” in ochem bugs me greatly.
It just got worse.
My current contract is bad. On my first day as a contract/consultant, I was told the manager had stepped up in her leadership role.
AWESOME! Kudos for her!!
A week later, he told me that I was a short timer and he was unclear where there’d been a misinterpretation (maybe when he told me personally and the group that placed me that he could maybe keep me through med school???).
Anyway, the weekend our take home was supposed to be worked on, he said the CEO wanted the budget done which meant, I got to dig into spreadsheets - 36 tabs long, multiple columns all unlinked to the raw data (They’d been previously linked last year but were copy/paste valued over when last saved… no earlier editions existed).
Suffice to say, I worked almost 50 hours over 4 days to get that done, only to turn in my take home for an “F”… fast forward a week, I took a day off to start studying for my next midterm in the same class… studied over the weekend, studied on Monday when I got an email:
“CFO wants to talk to me, set up an urgent meeting for Tues. Anything I should know?”
For the next 36 hours, I fretted until I was told that yes, I get an “A+” for everything I’ve done and would leave highly, unequivocally recommended to anyone, I was done in three weeks and during those three weeks, I’d get 10 hours a week max in which to bill.
Eff me. Really? Couldn’t wait on that news until AFTER my midterm that he knew I had? In which he knew I’d just received my first “F” in 3 years?
Really?
Grades came out on the midterm. I got just a few points above the average. I’m now squarely in the mid-B to B+ range. No way for me to get an “A” anymore.
I’m … sunk. I just walked our great dane around the neighborhood - twice. Crushing blow… and honestly, maybe… I should hang up this ride. 
Tired of making excuses, tired of getting trampled by life… my grades are okay but my gosh, I hate "B"s…
There’s a story called ‘the farmer’s luck.’ In the condensed version, it goes like this: A farmer’s horse runs away. His wife laments the loss, crying and upset. He just shrugs and says ‘what will be, will be.’ The following day, the horse returns with two other wild horses. The wife celebrates, the farmer says ‘what will be, will be.’ As the son is trying to tame one of the new horses, he falls off and shatters his leg. She says ’ Oh No! Who will help you plow now?’ ‘What will be, will be.’ Just then, the King’s Army rides up hoping to draft the son, but they realize he is of no use with a broken leg.
What will be, will be, my friend. All we can do is try to listen to our hearts, use our mind and pick a direction. In any case, what is worth having is never easy to obtain. Good luck to you, and godspeed in your travels, wherever they lead.
Can I give a quick reality check? I think sometimes we get so caught up in the pressure of this ride…thinking “A or nothing. A or nothing. A or nothing!!!” that we forget the broader picture.
You are nowhere close to failing. You have a B. Many, many, many, MANY students get into med school with a B in organic chemistry.
You have a B!
Take a few breaths…step back, broaden your perspective, and recognize what you have. All that you’ve done to get this far. You’ve had a crap week–and what happened with your contract STINKS. I’m so sorry!
But you are going to be just fine…and I wouldn’t, for a moment, recommend you quitting this journey because of B’s in organic chemistry. Again, a lot of folks would be proud to have that grade!!
Getting into med school does not mean you have to be perfect. Yes, A’s are ideal. But a B doesn’t shut you down. Not even close!!! Onward and upward…you can do this.
Thanks Art and Carrie!
I got a B in ochem last semester and a B in gchem II.
My biochem professor told me to overcome those with an A in his course - he’s on the adcom, he’s one of my LOR’s, he has supported me… and then done so again.
It is biochem that I’m now squarely at a B or B+, 5 pts above the cAvg of class.
Just sick… I’ve reached out to him to find out how I should study differently. It is not that I don’t know the material - he even called me on this, as he says, “I over think the questions” and then get them wrong.
For instance, DNA - RNA - Both - Neither:
has a helical shape?
I said only DNA for while RNA has a helical portion in some for a brief time, it then flattens out and the h-bonds make it all jumbled up (believe that’s tRNA). RNA also makes the cloverleaf, etc etc etc. So, I put just DNA.
Wrong. I had both, but then changed it up and put just DNA.
Aaack, I hate that! It almost sounds like, with your knowledge, you’d do better with short answer so you could explain yourself!
If I get into an argument with myself during an exam, I always just go ask the professor and explain myself. Example–last OrgoII exam, we were predicting the product of a given reaction, and in oder to do so we had to know whether something was a o/p director or m-director…
well, in the given problem, (Friedel-Crafts reaction using AlCl3, CH3Cl, and benzene with 1 nitro group), the initial response was, “oh, nitro is a meta director, so the product must be m-nitrotoluene.” Then, I started thinking. (Uhoh)
Because the substituent was a nitro group, and the reaction was set up as a Friedel Crafts RXN, I thought to myself, "Hmm… one of the limits of this RXN is that if the substituent is TOO “electron-withdrawing,” the Benzene ring won’t be electron rich enough to undergo this reaction… So then I just wanted to leave it blank and write “no reaction.”
I argued with myself for awhile, and finally just marched up to the prof and explained my dilema. His answer? “Well, crap…you got me. You’re right. No reaction…in theory. But just assume there is a product, and pretend that limitation isn’t there.”
In other words, he’d made a mistake. He was really testing, “do you know that NO2 is a m-director?” and completely forgot about the limitation piece.
BAAAH!!!
I completely understand the frustration…sometimes it feels like you almost get penalized for knowing too much and thinking too hard! LOL
But I just want to encourage you. Keep reaching out to the prof, keep doing your best, and keep walking!