Returning to school after spring break is always exciting. It’s nice to come back feeling reinvigorated, tanned and well rested. Not to mention, it’s always exciting to catch up with friends and share your best spring break stories. However, in these next few weeks you will probably receive the results of the midterm hell that took place right before the break, which you likely erased from your memory while lounging on the beach. This can be extremely nerve racking, and if the results aren’t up to your standards of excellence, these next few weeks can be wrought with disappointment and stress. Luckily, however, your midterm grade is not your final grade. There is still plenty of time left in the semester to improve your grade. Here are a few tips for how to deal with disappointing midterm grades, and for moving on with the rest of the semester in a productive way.
1. Reflect: As students, it is important to reflect on the circumstances that may have led to disappointing grades. We need to do this because it gives us the opportunity to prevent these circumstances from occurring in the future. So, think about it. Maybe you were so bogged down with work that you didn’t have time to begin thinking about the assignment or exam until the night before. Maybe you studied well in advance, but studied the wrong material. Or, perhaps you worked all night and weren’t well rested enough to put in your best effort. Whatever the reason may be for the poor grade, it is important to think about it in order to learn more about yourself, and to do your best to prevent it from happening in the future.
2. Talk to the professor: First of all, I encourage you to wait a day or two until you cool off before taking this step. If you don’t, you run the risk of speaking rashly to your professor, or even shedding a tear in his or her office. This can be extremely awkward, and it likely won’t help your grade at all. So, after a day or two, calmly go to your professor’s office hours with your exam or paper, and be prepared to speak about what you did wrong, and how you can go about improving your work in the future. Believe it or not, professors are human too. They appreciate effort and integrity, and probably remember how hard it is to be a student. Moreover, if you show your professor that you are active in your own learning process, he or she will appreciate you as a student, and may give you the benefit of the doubt in the future.
3.Keep calm and carry on: Obviously grades are important to all of us, but they are only a small factor of our college experience. We are not here to be perfect, but rather we are here to develop as thinkers and as people. Therefore, sometimes, getting a disappointing grade is a great opportunity to learn more about yourself and to practice overcoming adversity. So, after you figure out what you did wrong on the exam or paper, acknowledge it, forgive yourself and move on.