My dream not realized, and I am falling down a deep cliff.

[hadsed]

Oh fine. The point I was really trying to make was that this guy simply isn't trying hard enough. At the moment, he clearly wants to succeed at this level. Perhaps at a higher level he will decide it's not worth it to spend his life getting to the point where others can get to without nearly as much effort. I don't think this is that point... so he should put in the time.

 

[PieceOfPi]

Poutin, I think by this time, you realized that the general opinion of the people on this thread is that getting a B- in a MVC class is not going to kill your chance of going to a graduate school in math, and you should work hard on doing something else. Somehow, you don't seem to believe what the people are saying on this thread. I'm not sure why, but I feel like you don't believe the ideas on here because you don't like it. Maybe you just don't like to work hard for your dream. While it is true that there are people who never achieve their dreams despite how much they work, it is certainly true that working hard can increase your chance of achieving your dream. Do you want to go to a graduate school in math? Then you might want to start working harder for it --that's right, harder, not the way you are working right now. Perhaps, a B- from your MVC course might be a wake-up call for you--if you don't start working harder, you will never learn how to do that.

You told us that you were getting a lot of C's in your high school courses expect for math. That might be because you never learned how to (1) work hard, and/or (2) study to get good grades. I understand some of the classes in high school are boring and pointless, but that is not an excuse for getting C's. And this is probably why you are feeling the way you are right now--you got a crappy grade in your math class, and you don't know what to do. And I think this is one of the things that is causing you to disbelieve in everything.

You still have a chance to study math in graduate school, but you seem too weak to grab that chance; if you don't change right now, I have a feeling that you will never see that chance again. Fortunately, nobody cares about your high school GPA once you're in college, and as people say, a grade from MVC is not going to kill your chance of going to a decent graduate school in mathematics. The question is, are you going to grab that chance or not? If you decided not to, forget what I just said...

 

[twofish-quant]

Oh fine. The point I was really trying to make was that this guy simply isn't trying hard enough.

I don't see any evidence of that, and I've seen people get into trouble in the math and sciences by trying *too hard* rather than not hard enough. People have their limits and part of the trick in physics and mathematics is to figure out what to do when you hit your limits.

When you actually do hit your limits, "try harder" is seriously bad advance. One problem is that mathematically it doesn't work. If you have 20 smart people, someone is going to get the B-, and if they all try harder then someone is still going to get the B-.

At the moment, he clearly wants to succeed at this level.

Yes, and I think his expectations are unrealistic and counterproductive.

It seems to me that they are holding him back, rather than pushing them forward. If you are working at 110%, then you are going to burnout. If you are working at 85%, then paradoxically guilt that you aren't working hard enough sometimes is what keeps you from working harder.

Also there is such a thing as figuring out where to put your effort into. Personally, I've found it more useful to most *less* effort into getting A+'s than to get B's in courses and then spend time reading things that weren't assigned in class. Or to forget about getting an A+ in intro arithmetic and work on getting a B- in whatever class I could do that was at the limit of my ability.

 

[twofish-quant]

Perhaps, a B- from your MVC course might be a wake-up call for you--if you don't start working harder, you will never learn how to do that.

I should mention here that I have a Ph.D., and I think this is exactly the wrong advice. When I was an undergraduate at MIT, I saw more people get into trouble by working too hard than not working hard enough. If you start working too hard, you burn out. The reason I react strongly against advice to *work harder* is that people that are close to burning out get into even worse situation if they try to work harder.

One problem is that if you are close to burn out, then if you just work harder, you are unlikely to be doing things that are useful, and the fact that you are putting more effort and getting less out just makes your situation worse.

If you are taking MVC, your problem is very unlikely to be lack of mental effort or intelligence.

The question is, are you going to grab that chance or not? If you decided not to, forget what I just said...

I think this is pretty awful advice. If you make people think there is just one chance, then you'll go nuts if you miss than chance. People will make mistakes, and even if you do everything right, things will not go your way.

If you want to have a career in math and physics, you have got to learn to *relax*. You'll be doing this for decades, and if you don't *relax* then you'll burn out, and once you burn out and hate math and physics, then it doesn't matter how many other chances come along.

 

[Leptos]

But that B^- is like on a 4.33 scale, it's like 61%

Did you check if your college would ignore that grade if you take MVC this Fall? If you do start off with a clean transcript this coming semester, then there's no reason to worry.

 

[hadsed]

Well the only way we can know if he's 'hit the wall', so to speak, or if he's just not focusing on academics as much and studying as well as he should be is if he tells us. Otherwise, I think we're both giving advice based on [obviously shaky] assumptions.

But I have a feeling that my assumption was correct, and I think I'm probably thinking of it this way because of the fact that a lot of underclassmen who make a bad grade freak out and think that all the sudden they're not as smart as they thought. This is probably true in some cases, but I think the more likely case is that they don't have study habits and learning skills that are up to par with the material they're trying to learn. Then they freak out and automatically conclude that they're just losers. I think that your (talking to two-fish here) argument makes more sense (but definitely not limited to) at the higher levels. Also, if you went to MIT I think you'd be more likely to see this happen during, say, freshman year. Of course I'm making more assumptions here.. but I hope you see what I'm saying here.

 

[deRham]

But I have a feeling that my assumption was correct, and I think I'm probably thinking of it this way because of the fact that a lot of underclassmen who make a bad grade freak out and think that all the sudden they're not as smart as they thought. This is probably true in some cases, but I think the more likely case is that they don't have study habits and learning skills that are up to par with the material they're trying to learn.

The point I was really trying to make was that this guy simply isn't trying hard enough.

I think you might be making two different (not necessarily exclusive) claims. I think the fellow is probably working hard, from the sounds of his anguish. First off, a lot of people do poorly in a beginning level course and do better in advanced courses, because while they have great aptitude for advanced material, they do not have test-taking aptitude that becomes more important with earlier level material. There's a difference between elementary level tricks and the real stuff.

I think that re-evaluating approach and concentrating on doing well in higher-level stuff is the best I can say. Be smart about how you learn, and do what you need to do to stay in the running for your goals - don't jump off a cliff, that's a surprisingly important bit of advice. Just don't totally ruin your grades.

If you start working too hard, you burn out. The reason I react strongly against advice to *work harder* is that people that are close to burning out get into even worse situation if they try to work harder.

Quoted for truth. Life is long, if you take care of yourself. It's not short, that's just a trite expression, and you'll find things change a lot. Keep yourself productive and you'll find half the people around you will lose the battle just because they lose the steam to continue.

 

[deRham]

Then you might want to start working harder for it --that's right, harder, not the way you are working right now. Perhaps, a B- from your MVC course might be a wake-up call for you--if you don't start working harder, you will never learn how to do that.

I don't have a PhD, but I also don't think this is the way to approach it. MVC is not reflective of what you'll do in grad school. You SHOULD be able to find MVC elementary in time, but that doesn't mean you were prepared for it at the time you took it, poutin.

Maturity, loving to think about the subject inside out, etc are what you need for a PhD. To get into a top notch program, you also will need to worry about grades and test scores, and have lots of luck. Lots of smart people decide that they don't care enough about selling their souls to academia for them to obsess about doing what is needed to get into top programs, etc -- they can enjoy math, physics, etc in different places. You can make a better career going to a non-top program than a top program, if you plan correctly, especially assuming your career is not in academia.

Poutin, people have already told you that you can fix this. You should be studying right now. That's probably why you got such a crappy grade in the first place, you probably don't know how to get a good grade. That means get off this website and study. And for god's sake stop whining.. if you work hard enough, you will get an A. It's as simple as that.

Studying smarter with good advice in mind is more important than studying harder. Getting an A in MVC does not take that much studying, let's be realistic. You have to try lots of problems and be able to juggle the theory well when asked to apply it in different situations. If you are able to try lots of things, you will probably arrive at the answer anyway.

I think spending time understanding what went wrong and recovering from the blow is more important than spending that much more time studying, this is math, not history, where memorizing and read big, fat books every week isn't the point.

 

[twofish-quant]

This is probably true in some cases, but I think the more likely case is that they don't have study habits and learning skills that are up to par with the material they're trying to learn.

I've seen this a lot in non-science majors. In the case of people that do physics and math, I've rarely found that poor study habits is really the root problem. What tends to happen is that in physics, math, engineering courses, the tendency is to raise the bar to levels that are frankly unreachable.

Even when poor study habits is an issue, telling someone to study harder is rarely useful, because if you are studying the wrong way, then doing it harder will lead to just more frustration. Personally, I don't think that a freshman with poor study habits is going to pass MVC, and the fact that someone gets a B- suggests that poor study habits is not the main problem.

 

[twofish-quant]

First off, a lot of people do poorly in a beginning level course and do better in advanced courses, because while they have great aptitude for advanced material, they do not have test-taking aptitude that becomes more important with earlier level material. There's a difference between elementary level tricks and the real stuff.

The other thing is that you have to figure out what the best use of your time really is, and sometimes getting an A instead of a B- *isn't* your best use of your time. If you spend less time getting an A+ and more time reading things that are not assigned in class, or may have nothing to do with what the teacher assigned, then that may be a good thing to do.

Something that I see a lot of people do is that they forget what it is that they are really trying to do. There is this idea that if you study hard and work yourself to death, then there is a pot of gold at the end of the trail when there just isn't one. After, you go through undergraduate, there is grad school, after that post-docs, then if you go into academia you have junior faculty craziness and then senior faculty craziness.

It doesn't get any easier, and if you don't learn to enjoy the material at least some of them time, you really should ask yourself what you are doing.

The thing about college is that you should be asking yourself what you really want to do. You can make mistakes and do stupid things. The reason that you end up making a lot of mistakes and doing a lot of stupid things is that you often don't know what is a mistake and a stupid thing until you actually do it.

Just don't totally ruin your grades.

Also, if you need an easy grade, then take a class that is basically the same as the one that you just took.