Failed first midterm

[delta16]

I'm a first year PhD student at a Comp. Science program. The current course I'm taking has been really difficult for me. I regret taking that class and I wish I would have taken another. I am learning, but I feel that my background as an undergrad was not strong enough to support my learning in this course.

I just took my midterm last week and failed it -- miserably --wasn't even close to the mean score of the class. I feel so behind and discouraged. I don't know what happens when you fail a course, but I hate how this is interfering with my research time (and i love my research!)

Has this happened to anyone? What have you done that has helped? I feel like I want to just isolate myself for the next month and study/work like crazy until the final.

[SeriousSillyPutty]

My situation was a little different, but also I also failed my first midterm. Talk to your adviser (or at least more senior grad students), to find out what people tend to do. One of the grad students told me that if you're not going to do well (which is anything below a that it can be better to withdraw from the course. This seems silly to me, because a C may be a sign of unsatisfactory work, but if everyone getting a C withdraws, then a W means the same thing, but with less follow through on trying to finish out the course. I don't really get it.

I know what you mean about being discouraged. In my case, I talked to the prof, who said I might as well stay in the class, because people tend to do better on the second exam and final once they know the test format. The course isn't required for my degree, but would be required for the strand I HOPED to be doing. I'm in the Ed department, and the official Science Ed strand requires taking upper-level science classes, in my case physics. It's a 400-level class that a number of the physics grad students take, and it's not easy for many of them either, but for them its more balancing it with all their grad-level classes. I knew I'd be rusty and have to catch up (b/c it's been 5 years since my last physics class) but I thought I'd be able to it -- I got A's in my physics classes senior year, so I used to know how to learn physics. Now I've come to accept that it's not just about catching up, it's the fact that I can't process the information fast enough to keep up, so I'm pretty much screwed. I emailed my advisor to let her know I probably have to withdraw from the class, which really bums me out.

You probably don't have as much of an option about taking it, but hopefully others in the program can tell you more.

Good luck!

[delta16]

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I am glad I'm not the only one going through these kinds of issues. I talked to the professor today and it encouraged me to continue and try really hard on the next assignments and the final. We'll see what happens...

[ANDS!]

If it is a course that's not particularly relevant to your long term academic plan (insofar as requirements are concerned) I wouldn't worry about it. Depending on how you are doing in other courses, I bet your advisor isn't that worried either.

If this starts a trend, then there might be cause for pause.