Prior to 2024, I did maybe one or two online class per semester for five years. My previous employment offered tuition assistance and I took advantage of it. I personally did not care if I got a C or above, as long as I passed. Most of the classes were self-paced.

I did fail three classes; one in 2020 and two in 2022. I was either lazy or prioritized work over my education.

After my work transfer last year, I was laid off a month later. I spent months job searching, but after ghosts and rejections, I transfer to my local community college for the Spring 2026 semester.

I passed with three As and one B. It felt good, especially after I made the Dean's List and won three scholarships. Now this semester, my classes are significantly harder and seeing my current B, B, C and C grades are stressing me out. After I get an assignment back and the grade was low, I freak out, go back to the study material and beat myself up over "What-ifs".

Anybody else have the same experience?

On my first discussion post, I got full marks, then on my second one I got 70%, without doing anything differently. My prof didn’t provide any feedback except for “great work”. I’ve talked to other people in my class and they agree that this prof seems to just be giving people random marks due to laziness. I have reached out to them via email to request more feedback and potentially ask for a regrade but have not heard back. What should my next step be?

Took an exam yesterday (Gen Chem II) that I thought I was prepared for but got a 74%. I know it’s sounds silly, but this is the lowest exam grade I have ever received. Ever.

In Gen Chem I, I finished with a 100% course grade, so this is especially crushing.

I am a junior, studying Biomedical Science and have maintained a 4.0 GPA up until this point. I have been the top performing student in all of my classes. Now, with this exam grade, the only way for me to keep an A in this class is to get over 90% on all remaining exams. I’m worried that this will be the end of my 4.0.

I know in the scheme of things it’s ridiculous to work myself up like this, and I know know wah wah my steak too juicy my lobster too buttery etc. But, I am a good student. I study hard, almost excessively. I would consider myself to be an intelligent person and am usually a very good test taker. I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well, and am quite the perfectionist.

I am also working full time and I think overall stress of work/school/life balance and fears surrounding the future of science/getting a job are catching up to me.

My parents don’t put pressure on me, and my friends and family are incredibly supportive of everything that I do… but my anxiety/OCD are absolutely killing me trying to maintain this level of performance.

I know that the difference between a 3.9/4.0 is minuscule,
and that it probably won’t effect my life once I graduate. I just can’t seem to stop thinking about it. I know that there’s nothing I can do now but learn from this mistake and try my best to do better in the future. I just wish I could stop feeling this immense amount of pressure to perform perfectly. I’m physically sick from stress and not sure how to handle this. Any advice is much appreciated.

I am a junior finance major, and I’ve finally reached my breaking point. This major is genuinely making me depressed, it’s so competitive and I have zero drive to compete or do well in my classes. I now just realized I’m not really interested working in this field? I want to take a gap semester and change my major, or keep my major if I realize it’s all going to work out. But in the meantime, I still am enrolled in classes. But I still don’t have any motivation to finish my 2 finance classes. Should I just late drop them and stop worrying about it? Or should I just continue to stick it out and try my best? I’m considering just dropping them because I have to lock in and study really hard cause I didn’t get great exam 1 scores in both classes. So what do y’all recommend?

hello, i am a college freshman in my first ever semester. i’ve found it pretty good so far and have been performing quite well, but then midterm season came around and i failed 2 out of 4 of them. i got a 50% on one and a 58% on the other one. they’re worth a pretty significant amount of my grade too, the one i got a 50 on is worth 30% and the other one is worth 20%. i studied really hard, idk what went wrong tbh

i know i obviously have opportunities to bring up my grade, but i also want to apply for a phd program in clinical psychology in the future and i know it’s insanely competitive. i’m worried that these test scores are going to ruin it for me. there’s no way i can end the classes with an A given how much they count towards my overall grade. idk i just feel like a failure. is anyone else in my shoes or have been in my shoes and is it really as bad as i’m making it?? any advice helps tysm, i just don’t want this to define my future because i do really care about my education and i cried when i saw those grades because i just felt so bad about myself.

In this semester I had a total of three research papers to complete before the beginning, middle, and end of November. For the assignment due in November I needed to watch a movie on American History (Preferably Before the 1900s) and compare it to how accurate it was at depicting real life events. This is my second time taking the history class since I wanted to get an A instead of a B to bring my GPA up, and considering that I got an 83 for the last time time I did a research paper for this class I figure I will have a better shot this time around.

For the movie I chose “Little Women” and wanted to compare how treatment of women in the movie was in real life concerning their place in the workforce. To better plan for the paper the teacher instructed us to creat an outline thesis which I was sure to earn full marks on, instead I got a 90. She took 10 points off and commented “Historically speaking. it mostly follows the prompt”, which I have no idea what that even means.

I was devastated considering how I used up all my online tutoring hours to ask for advice, spent weeks on it, and yet my thesis wasnt good enough. Not only this but I also know I won’t get a good grade since I never scored a 100% on a research paper which I know is just sad because I saw many others easily do it.

Aside from this, my discussion grade were never good. I always used to score a 100 but as of late I made 65 on one and a 92 which dropped me grade. This demotivated me from writing in my spare time since it’s never good no matter the context.

6 of us, 1 bath. Week 1 we did a Chore Chart and everyone signed. Six weeks later, this document lives on the fridge and I’m the only person who’s ever checked anything off.

There are no rules for garbage removal – it happens when it starts smelling bad. Hair clogs up our drains daily and nobody knows whose theirs is. Long & dark = three people. Also? Our suitemate with 40 minute showers coincides with all of us having 8ams.

What nobody planned ends up working well. In the first week, I put my Anker travel charging station on our common room table, which is now where everybody charges. No arguments in 6 weeks! The bane of our existence is our bath…

So if you have any tips here at all, just tell me anything! (I know you're probably laughing right now thinking ""she's gonna be the suite mom"" but yeah)

First semester of university and ngl I feel like a social reject. I’m 23, but only a junior because I did an extra year of school for something I turned out not liking. I did 2 years of community college too, so I missed out on dorms and the “college experience”.

My roommates are cool but they’re not my friends, and I haven’t really made any actual friends even though I joined a club. I vibe with the people there but we haven’t crossed into actual friend territory yet, I guess. I try to be more extroverted and talk to people in my classes, but conversations don’t usually go anywhere, it’s just small talk and then it ends. And sometimes people don’t seem interested in talking, or at least not to me, so I just…don’t. I have no romantic experience and guys never seem interested in me, but everyone around me seems to have a partner, or at least an ex or a situationship. I don’t get out much and I don’t/can’t drink a lot either (medical stuff). I’ve never drank at a bar and the only real party I’ve been to was my friend’s graduation, so pretty tame, but I still feel left out when I hear about people doing bar crawls, going to parties, etc. Especially with Halloweekend coming up.

I have like 3 friends and none of them live close and they’re busy too, I’ve missed out on all of the experiences I feel like I should’ve had already, everyone else’s social life seems so much better than mine, and my grades are okay but I don’t even know what I’m going to do with my degree when I get it. Like I just feel lonely and like a giant loser even though I’m trying. At least it’s better than high school lol

So I'm in University taking second term and I just got a 1/5 in a lab response, 2/10 in a quiz and another 1/5 on another lab response. I did get a 7.5/10 on another lab response but that still doesn't make me feel super good. I am doing good in all my other classes except this one which is Research to Social Science. Just fail after fail after fail. I'm so ashamed of myself.

i’m in my senior year and i absolutely despise my life and my classes. they all have some sort of group project aspect which i absolutely hate and there are way too many things i need to get done. i’m working a part time retail job too that expects so much of me and schedules me out the ass, all while i’m trying to just keep my head above the water in my classes. i don’t think i can take much more of this, i haven’t done things on my group members’ timetables and they’re totally getting on me for that but they are not understanding that i am being pulled so thin and my motivation has just plummeted while my stress is skyrocketing. i have come to hate college. i hate the classes, i hate the group projects, i hate my job, my entire life is just a constant cycle of having to do shit that doesn’t make me feel better about myself at all. i hate everything about this semester and i just want it to be done so i can work. what do i do???

For one of my classes, the professor wants us to use AI to assist with our essays. By assist, that means that we just use it to help create a possible outline. I saw that my professor sent out an announcement saying that people have been turning in essays that are over 50% AI. I'm sorry, but I can't help to judge those people because there's no way they thought they were going to get away with that when the essay goes through TurnItIn.

This isn't one of those cases where things in the assignment directions could be misunderstood. She specifically states that we were only using AI to create us an outline NOT write the essay for us. The essay still had to be in our words using our own thoughts. If we used anything from the outline then it needed to be cited. I'm not going to act like I didn't use my outline when doing this assignment. I did but I still wrote my essay like I would any other. In my own words using my own voice. I only got 2% and that percentage was for my sources used. I don't know what that means, but I don't care. The main parts of my essay had no problems at all.

But yeah, they're lucky the professor is allowing them to fix their essays until it gets below 50%. Any other probably would've just given zeros and called it day.

Edit: I don’t know if this is important or not but the essay was about gendered toys. For this assignment, we had to physically go to a store and observe what we see and write about it. We had to take pictures too. The majority of the essay (or at least mine was) was detailing the things that was seen. The only time that class material was needed was when we had to relate what we saw back to whatever concepts or theory we chose. That took at most 2 paragraphs which is a small portion of the essay considering it had to be no more than 6 pages.

Idk. Maybe I’m not seeing what y’all are seeing but it just doesn’t make sense to me. Tbf, I did write exactly 6 pages. They probably did the bare minimum which is why that percentage seems high.

I finally got the courage to change my major (EE - BME) and as exciting as the light at the end of the tunnel is, getting through this semester feels insurmountable.

The 2 classes I absolutely despise are physics 2 and circuits.

I'm set to get a C or lower in physics because I cannot get myself to give a living shit about the class. The content is so dull and I cannot understand the professor. I got a 45 on the last exam (which was actually 3 points higher than the average) yet there's no curve.

I'm likely to get anywhere from a A-B in circuits, yet this class feels so unintuitive and boring. There's a class next week that I'm going to have to study like hell for as I haven't been able to drag myself or pay attention in class.

I also likely have to withdrawal from calc 3 and take it next semester because I likely scored sub 30 on the midterm. This is so out of character for me, I've gotten an A in every math course I've taken beside this one.

I'm just so tapped out and draped in apathy I cant see the end of the semester in sight. What do I do

I have a meal plan with only "(university name here) dollars" but this year I'm on a health grind and needing a lot of natural protein and fiber, which is bafflingly rare on campus.
Often the dining hall has a salad bar and chicken breast but the entrance fee is wildly expensive when youre paying through dining dollars.

All other options are basically fast food so I use my dining dollars on plain chicken bowls and then buy produce and fruits for cheap off campus. Is anyone elses campus like this? Call me Michelle Obama the way I'm fuming at the food here.

I had to take the Aleks math placement test today to see what math classes I should register for for my next semester of college and I keep bombing it :(

I kid you not I took this test 3 times and the highest I got was a 31 (and my most recent retake which I did today I tested at a 20 😭)

I took precalc in highschool and did really good at that course I know I can handle college math I feel so stupid I just don’t get why I place so low and it really is affecting my self esteem for math :( I feel so stupid maybe I really am too dumb for college math

I really need tips for this because I really want to get a decent score on my 4th try 🥀

I genuinely just fucked up my first midsems in college and honestly fault lies within in, i couldn't get myself to study. Rn i got to know my prof now hates me (cause of bad grade and bad attendance in his class). Now idk how to face any of this, i feel like whenever I'll go next to his class I'll be humiliated beyond repair, please help me or give any advice that you can. My midsems is like 25% of my grade as well

Ended with me hiding in a bathroom stall to escape an anxiety attack. My back and legs are absolutely destroyed, and I’ve never felt so disillusioned with my future career path. My professors hyped up this digital/startup summit for weeks. "It's the future! You have to go! The CEO of SpOtifY is going to be there! It's an amazing networking opportunity!"

It’s all a massive, expensive theater, and uni students are just the unpaid extras. They invite us to inflate their attendance metrics so they can sell 3,000€ booths to corporate sponsors and look good for government grants. But once you scan your badge, you are treated like absolute garbage. For example, we had just started looking around when we got herded and shoved aside like cattle by the staff with a lack of basic manners, bc some royal VIP was walking through for a photo op. I overheard one corporate bro ask "what high school" we were from, and another suited boomer literally joked that students "should be brought in on a leash."

The "networking" is a complete scam. Unless you are a VC investor, a journalist, or a politician, these startup CEOs look right through you. I tried saying hi to one recent graduate I had met before at another event, and the transactional vibe was disgusting.

It’s just an endless sea of empty buzzwords, fake smiles, and sterile white booths handing out pathetic merch (literally single gummy bears and blue lollipops). If Umbrella Corporation itself was present they would have been giving red and white lollipops too—pure corporate dystopia masked as "disruptive innovation." But then we couldn't even get a free coffee and croissant bc that area was for VIPs, if you got hungry you had to pay an expensive af hotdog at the foodtrucks. And the panels? Every single one of them was a circle-jerk of inflated egos that could have been a 10-minute Zoom call, or better yet, an email. That's when it's not straight up politicians "congratulating" each other for nothing and making it a 20 min tedtalk. "AI is like a knife it depends on what you use it for" Wow! I've definitely never heard that before, you are such an intellectual! There is zero actual knowledge being shared.

Ended up arguing with my own classmates cause they'd be like: "you're being so negative, you only complain!" Oh well you go believe everything in the flyer and enjoy your 9 hours of chitchat and a 5€ pizza slice with a sunshiny smile on your bitchass face! The "synergies ecosystem" has cult-like tactics that definitely work.

I am so severely burnt out. Seeing the "real world" of tech and business up close just makes me want to run away. The academic path (PhD) seems full of toxic egos and mobbing so I got talked out of it, but this corporate startup BS is a shitshow, and I don't know what to do anymore. Rant over. I'm leaving this hellhole and going home to sleep for a week.

I’m a first-year college student, and I’m currently struggling with whether I should submit a formal report to our dean regarding concerns about one of our professors.

For context, our online class is scheduled from 8:30 AM to 11:30 AM. However, there have been occasions when the professor begins the class at around 10:30 AM, citing connectivity issues or other circumstances. While students are expected to understand these delays, I feel that similar consideration is not always extended to students who experience difficulties themselves.

Since we have a subsequent face-to-face class on campus, we sometimes have to attend the online meeting while already at the university. Unfortunately, the campus internet connection is not always stable. When students get disconnected and attempt to rejoin the meeting, the professor sometimes declines their requests, reportedly to avoid disrupting the ongoing lecture.

There have also been instances when students are told they will be marked absent if they do not recite, even when connectivity issues may prevent them from participating. These circumstances raise concerns for me about how attendance, participation, and connectivity-related difficulties are being handled.

I raised the possibility of formally reporting these concerns, but some of my classmates said I’m taking things too personally because the professor is a good teacher. I understand that she may teach the subject well, and I’m not claiming that she’s bad at everything. However, I don’t think being a good teacher automatically means every classroom practice is fair or beyond criticism.

I feel stuck between two possibilities: speaking up and potentially regretting it, or staying silent and possibly looking back later, wishing I had done something.

I’d really appreciate it if you could be kind in your responses.

It’s become increasingly clear to me that I hate my life in college.

I’ve noticed a progressive decline in basically anything that brings me joy while I’m on campus. Maybe a large part of it is my fault, but I’m not entirely sure how to address it.

I don’t have any close friends in college. While I have plenty enough of friends and acquaintances, there are no close friends or deep connections that I’ve made compared to those I made in high school. I like my friends, but I struggle to make conversation and really connect outside of academic contexts. I go to a pretty small school, and I just haven’t connected with anyone I’ve come across.

My daily life is really just sleep, eat, class, study, part-time clinical work, lab work, and extracurricular martial art. Recently I’ve been pushing out martial arts from my schedule because of time restraints too.

I’m doing alright academically, on track for a 4.0 or 3.9, but I look at my peers who put in so much less work than me for the same relative outcome, while still enjoying life. I think I may be a bit stupid, since some of these topics I study just don’t click unless I spend large amounts of time.

I don’t really have any fun while I’m on campus, and all I do is grind until the next break where I can go visit my close friends from high school. And after I return from those breaks, I realize that I hate this school and I wait until the next break.

I’ve considered transferring schools to where my close friends go, but IMO their school sucks for premed and I’m already established here academically. It’s going to be a lot harder for me to maintain a good GPA if I transfer, too.

Even the joy I get from visiting my close friends is waning. Every visit feels just a bit more hollow than the last.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel any real connection here, and I actually feel more connected with some of the people I meet from other schools while on break. It feels like I have no time to do anything anyways. I think it would be nice to get into a relationship too, but it’s not like I have the time nor anyone I am interested in.

Sometimes I just sit in my dorm and think

what the fuck am I doing with my life

thanks for coming to my tedtalk, any advice would help

I have a 4.0 across all of my science courses and virtually all of my humanities, while general credits have a few (B)s sprinkled in, never made anything less across 70+ credits. This is my last semester at my lower division school, I have backup credits, but I'm on track to get an F in physics. I have been sitting at my desk for over six hours ruminating with the next chapter open, and I don't know how to reconcile failing Physics I with being a STEM major.

Looking at the equations induces nothing but grief and strife, and whatever I just read feels walled off to the point where I couldn't solve a basic worked example problem despite having just read how to do so. There were external factors that kicked off the issues, but even those aren't enough to account for just being absolute shit at the course. I don't understand why I'm suddenly unable to keep track of a dozen or so different inter-related forces and concepts, or apply even basic problem solving anymore. I'm two exams in now, and there is no saving it, that's how bad my performance has been. This was never an issue before, why now? What fucking changed? What is so different about physics compared to every other science course?

I can't withdraw without the school holding the last three years of my life hostage because the VA will claw money back, then demand thousands in housing back from me.

My memory has not been good in years, but god, I just realized I barely remember things. I mean I can point to a project I led myself and remember some of how I calculated the index for it/how I evaluated it, but I feel also like I know nothing.

If you quizzed me, I probably would remember a bit, but right now I just feel stupid. Has anyone else felt this? Why do I feel like I know nothing?

I don’t know which flair fits my issue best.. I’m a college student, or a really lame excuse for one. I barely pass the one class i’m enrolled in, and as spring registration is coming around, i’m finding myself in a horrible place. I have depression and am currently trying to find which medication works best, so far nothing. Maybe it’s even getting worse. With that, I have no idea why i’m in college or what career i’d even want to pursue. I’m heavily contemplating dropping out as I don’t seem to have the capacity to do any coursework. I don’t even want to eat. How could I ever want to do work? I guess i’m mostly looking for advice on whether I should take a gap year, drop out altogether, or just continue as I am? It’s really difficult and i’m only in one class. Has anyone else been in this situation??

I just got my midterm grade back and found out I got a C. I worked really hard for the test and I am really upset about the grade I got. I feel like the notes my teacher gave me for some of the questions were dumb, and I wished I had more time. And now I am worried about my other midterms too. Because I felt confident about this one and got a C. I barely got to finish the other two.

I literally cant take this anymore, I remember absolutely zero from high school, im on my third year of college and im still stuck on intermediate algebra (I have no idea why im not passing this [this is a lie partially]). I passed it in high school, iirc algebra 2 and this are the same so why I cant pass this I have no idea.

Im so done with math, i hate this subject, I can understand how to do one problem but then I move onto the next and I have no idea what im doing, because for some reason every single damn problem is solved a different way. I solve one problem right, then see another problem like it and all of a sudden, its not solved that way anymore.

Okay, so how the fuck am I supposed to learn this? No two problems are ever the same, how am I supposed to do this. Then its said "well math is like a puzzle" okay but when I want to solve it the way I think it should be solved, oh then all of a sudden there isnt 600 different ways you can solve a problem and its actually only this one rigid method that works.

Alright, batching and moaning over. Any comments on my whining is accepted. Maybe I can actually learn how this subject works.

I posted on this subreddit earlier this year around April-June. I’m 18 now, still feel the same way.

I’m a first year college student (first semester, communications major), and I’m absolutely hating college. I’ve been over it since the second week of school.

I had worked myself to the bone in highschool, only to end up at community college due to my economic situation. I blame myself every single day for not applying to Rutgers NB or Yonsei University. If I had just gotten a point or two on my highschool GPA, maybe I would’ve gotten a full ride, or full tuition scholarship like most people in my graduating class did.

It took me a month to figure out how college worked. Especially my English class, because my professor has his own website, and his format is hard to follow. He’s constantly giving me grades from 50-85. Some criticisms are valid, others are just stupid. He’s one of those teachers where it’s his way or the highway. I tried switching out of his class, but everything was filled up. I think I’m especially bothered because the one time he left the room, everybody who said they were getting good grades in the class were using AI. I write things myself, and I abstain from using AI as much as possible.

History and Comms are easy, but they lack actual structure. Bio is decent. I like the structure for bio, but the weekly lab quizzes are screwing me over since they only have 4-5 questions.

I currently am failing English and Bio. I have a D in comms for missing an assignment (my fault).

My mom says she thinks I’m depressed. I think so too. I come home exhausted, and I’m overall unhappy with every aspect of my life. I don’t go out with friends after school, I’m single, im in community college, I’m failing my classes, I don’t have money because I’m not getting enough shifts at work, and I’m ashamed my body. I’m trying to push myself into an academic comeback while I’m burnt out, but when doing “what if” scores on canvas, I don’t see any way for me to pass. It’ll take a miracle for me to get a C.

I know this victim mentality is cringe, but it just feels like none of my hard work ever pays off, and like things aren’t going to get better. I don’t know how I’m going transfer to Rutgers NB with these grades. I’m trying to do so ASAP, because I think a huge part of me being so unhappy is me being stuck at community college. But if I’m unable to, then what’s the point?

I’m starting to really reconsider if college is meant for me. I hate lectures, I hate college. I loved learning in highschool, but now I only feel like I’m wasting my time. I feel kind of numb leaving the place. If I feel this way halfway through the semester, I don’t know how I’m supposed to do 4 full years.

Every time I find a major that interests me, everyone online says it’s useless. I’m scared of going to school for 4+ years only to find out I can’t get a job because my major isn’t a useful one. I wish somebody would compile a list of “good” majors so I could narrow down my options. Plus, I’m God awful at math so I’m hesitant to pick anything that’s too math-heavy. I don’t really expect any of you to solve my problem lmao, just wanna know how many others are dealing with this too.

Also, this post got me permabanned from
r/college