Ashley1261...first off, I know that horrible feeling about Chem! I had to take Organic Chem my first semester of Nursing
School, and my Prof. was honestly convinced that we needed to be taught at a Graduate level, not an UNdergrad. Our lectures were *self-study*, and when she did lecture, her accent and loose grasp of English made it extremely difficult to understand. The entire class was actually failing at one point. And to top it off, her culture did not believe in make education accessible to the student. Rather, she believed that the student should strive for the education. Needless to say, I failed not only an exam, but also my fair share of quizzes, and assignments. After the first couple of failures, though, I decided that I while we were not going to change the prof, I can change myself. So...every class period I sat in the front row. I made sure I worked on my homework BEFORE class, and did practice probs at home and reread the chapters as many times as I needed to, and I PARTICIPATED in class. It didnt matter if I felt confident or not, I made sure that every class period I was attempting to answer her questions, at the board doing her practice problems, and when I got them wrong, (which I did 80% of the time) I made SURE I asked where I went wrong and asked her to walk through them with me in class. Yes, while it was slightly embarrassing at times to continuously get stuff wrong with 40 other people watching me, I did learn, though. In fact, I learned A LOT from being a very active participant. And the prof noticed. She started grading my a little less harshly, and would get excited when I would try to participate. And in the end, guess how I finished the class that I spent the first half of the semester pretty much failing?? I got a B. So there is my advice. I guess just be the class poindexter. But really, it will help with your
learning. And maybe see about any office hours where you can go over your tests? That was another thing I did. I went to her office and we reviewed my exams, and went over what I need to do to improve. Take care, and if you need more advice, let me know!
