cemarg

Hi All, I'm doing a B.A. and M.A. in Economics, and just finished up a really rough semester with three B+'s (two of those in my core classes--Micro and Stats) and one A- in an elective in my specialty. I was doing fairly well until about a month ago, but then some really stressful things happened in my life and my finals did not go well. The median grade given in these classes is a B+, so I must have done very poorly indeed. My B.A. GPA was very good--on average 3.7-3.8 for my Econ and Math courses, and I consistently got near-perfect scores in Intermediate Microeconomics and Stats--, but I'm finding that I'm not doing nearly as well in my M.A. (this semester I have a 3.4, so will not make Dean's List, and my GPA fell from 3.69 to 3.64). I feel I've really hurt my chances of going back for a Ph.D and getting recommendations from professors who I was previously on great terms with. My questions are the following: How do I approach professors who I was friendly with and who were advising me after I basically bombed their finals (unheard of for me)? Will taking a few years off and getting more work experience do anything to soften the blow of these terrible grades? I'm especially interested in Microeconomics and Econometrics, but given the B+s I received in Micro and Stats, should I just give up now? In general, what can or should I do to recover my GPA and my reputation within my department?