Well, I worked myself into a corner this semester and screwed things up. Working full-time with a family and taking 12 credits (biology II, chem II and calculus) didn’t pan out.
While it looks like I’m a shoe-in for an A in biology and am hovering at an A-/B+ in chemistry, I have the good chance of drawing an F in calc.
Why? It’s an online class so it’s been self taught. With no deadline for the material, I kept putting off the course work…thinking I’ll catch up. Exhibiting some lousy judgment, I still thought I could pull it off once the withdrawal deadline had passed.
At the urging of my pre-med advisor, I contacted the math prof for a last-minute request for an Incomplete. The prof rejected it.
I now have to pull off a semester’s worth of learning by this Saturday to get a shot at getting anywhere from an F to a C. Sixty percent of the grade is based on online homework and quizzes; 40% on the final.
It’ll be a miracle if I pull it off, but I have to try and hope the math gods bestow enough intelligence in me get me through to a C…which at another point I presume I can re-take the class explaining why I got a C.
All this under the presumption that I shouldn’t stop now, take the F, and save myself a ton of grief because I still may earn an F anyway.
Obviously, the damage is done. I now have to think how to best explain this to the adcomm committee and what would better advance my cause: I wasn’t able to finish more than a quarter of the work but still got good grades in my other subjects; or I finished most of the work in a week and still flunked or eeked out C (very ambitious)?
Thoughts?
Naturally, I’m restricting myself to two classes per semester from here on out.
A “C†is always better than an “F.†If I were you, I would try my best at salvaging this. Have faith, though. I’ve tutored several people in failing situations like you are in over a weekend. Every one of them passed differential calculus after a marathon cram session. My best advice for you, other than me tutoring you, is to get the book Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus Phillips Thompson. Get whatever edition you can find. Heck, if the only version you can find is the 1918 version, then use that one. The book is great. You should read Thompson’s book before trying to read your textbook or skip the textbook entirely if Thompson has made it clear enough for you. Just remember, the key concept of differential calculus is that dy/dx means a really small bit of the y is divided by a really small bit of the x to give you the slope for that point.
Stay off the computer and study till Saturday. There is nothing else for you to do other than pass.
Try for the C way better over all then an F!!!
Call in sick what ever it takes!
Thanks for the replies.
Gabelerman, that’s why you haven’t seen me post here much, if at all, this semester. Too busy. And, why y’all won’t hear from me again until next week when the fat lady of calculus has sung.
John (hak)
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obviously at this point there is no choice but to go for it. I am crossing fingers and toes for your “C” – but worst case senario… you do it over - pay attention this time and get an A or B
but your overall goal is still finding your way to Doctoring - not mastering calculus. I finished with “c” s and no one ever questioned it. Calculus is just a stumbling block on the path - you will get past it one way or another.
GL.
Hakado! good luck bro! I was wondering where you were out there. 
will keep you in my prayers. this has been a crazy semester.
I put this forth for other returning students to learn from my mistakes as a returning student who is nearing the end of his first year on this whole old fart pre-med journey.
I took 12 credits this semester while working full-time, working wife and two young kids, yada yada (insert standard story here). I ended up with an A in biology II, a B in chemistry II (missed an A by 17 points [out of 500 total]) and will most likely get a well-deserved F in calculus.
Why? The short version is that I simply sacrificed the work in calc to do the work in bio and chem thinking I could “make it up†later in the semester when I had spare time. As I once again discovered, there ain’t so such thing as spare time.
Big lesson #1: Take your ego out of the equation. Because I (barely) pulled off an A last semester in an online pre-calc class, I had faith that I would pull a miracle out of my a$$. I didn’t. I wasn’t able to squeeze 14 weeks of calculus work into one week…with most of the work being done three days before the deadline.
Big lesson #2: Don’t be in a rush. While I’m not the oldest here, I consider myself among the older. I’ll be 41 in a couple of months and would like to get my pre-reqs done before I die. That logic led me take 12 credits this semester. Even though I knew it was going to be a dangerous semester for my GPA, I thought I could handle the work (see #1 above).
Big lesson #3: This is like a poker game. Know when to fold ‘em. When I realized I was getting behind the curve in this class I should have dropped it. However, I thought I would be able to catch up (see #1 above). The farther behind I got, the more I kept thinking I could pull that miracle out of my a$$. I’ve done it before, but met my match this semester.
Big lesson #4: This is like a poker game. Know when to fold ‘em. When I realized I was getting behind the curve in this class I should have dropped it. However, I thought I would be able to catch up (again, see #1 above). The farther behind I got, the more I kept thinking I could pull that miracle out of my a$$. I’ve done it before, but met my match this semester.
Big lesson #5: Listen to your classmates. Nearly every one told me taking an online calc class was the worst thing I could do. Did I listen? Nope. Once again, see #1.
The perq of being older, er…having more life experience, is that I don’t get myself wrapped around an axle on these things. While I HATE losing and admitting defeat, I also came to the realization that I was feeding a dead horse on this class. To mix metaphors, I applied a triage philosophy and saved the classes I could and let calc go flatline.
I made that decision and am moving forward where I will most likely re-take the class next summer or fall once I get the physics/organic series out of the way this fall and next spring.
Thanks for the kind thoughts bro. 
Hakado -
Sorry to hear you weren’t able to pull up the calc grade. However, it seems you have learned some valuable lessons from it. Thank you for posting your experience here for others to learn from as well.
Absolutely - thank you for sharing your perspective and the lessons you’ve learned, hakado. I get the distinct impression that a stumble like this isn’t going to take you out of the race. (Hooray for metaphors?)