The not so swimmingly semester

The fall 2009 semester is going into it's seventh week at my college, and there has been a drastic reduction in my performance when compared to the results from the previous Spring. The following factors are involved: an overall greater apathy towards the courses; stricter, more rigid courses; seemingly excessive online workload.

I regret to state that I decided to drop the precalculus course on just my second day of that class, as it was simply not advisable to struggle along all the while dealing with a fairly large amount of credits -18 - for the semester. The plan of action will be to instead start at an earlier level of math, and eventually work back up to the pre-cal segment, whereby a higher grade can be achieved.

All four courses that I currently have involve an online element to them. Two are completely online, and they require an elaborate summary to be posted regarding readings assigned. I find these courses to be less than stimulating, and yearn for the actual in-class versions instead. My Spanish and biology courses are on campus, but have an online lab/classroom design to them as well. With the biology, we are able to utilize our textbook and PowerPoint slides when complete a 30 minute 10 question weekly quiz. I've done well on these as you would expect, however, the very information being taught is not registering as it would in a traditional setting. The Spanish class is giving me the most trouble, but I can only blame my lack of focus and studying for the poor grades. I find having to attend the class just once per week leads to a state of apathy, quite similar to last semester's Saturday government class.

Going forward, I will avoid taking online courses altogether if at all possible, as being on campus is simply more appealing as the social structure of being around fellow students cannot be taken for granted. As the next semester approaches, I will have to decide which exact courses I want to sign up for, as essentially I'll be a college sophomore. However, duplicating my 4.0 GPA is looking far from realistic, and I will settle for just passing one course, and B's in the others.