Failing a course

Anyone ever done this? Was it a big deal to you, or not?

I just did. What’s horrible is that the professor gave me every chance in the world to recover - he even pushed back the due date for my term paper a month - but in the end, I just couldn’t brink myself to write it. I’m feeling guilty as all fuck now. Does anyone have any experiences similar to this, so I don’t feel like such a douche?

I was getting straight A’s, with one or two B’s at most until 9th grade, then I decided fuck it; got F’s and dropped out in 10th. I didn’t even begin college. Does that make you feel any better?

No, I always drop the class at midterm if I think I’m not doing well enough/can’t stand the teacher/think the class sucks. It’s kinda expensive, but better than hurting my GPA.

But if it makes you feel any better, I have a degree in Graphic Design, working on a BA in Fine Arts with a possible minor in English, and a 3.4 GPA…and I’ll STILL be working in a minimum wage job because my field of study isn’t worth shit in this podunk town. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Let’s see what I’ve failed during my engineer studies:

  • The first math course

  • The second one
    (I passed the third one with statistics and probabilities)

  • The fourth one that deals with a variety of signals and matrixes used in practice, such as editing photos with a math laboratory program

  • First physics course (recovered on second year with a resit)

  • Second physics course with magnetism, sound, light, etc. Failure mostly due to magnetism and my ability not to remember formulas.

(A course involving Flex/Mobile Flash because I was a stupid git who didn’t return the final course application that was obligatory.)

Edit: Interestingly enough, I haven’t failed a course since I quit working the weekends between studies. Weekends off are a rather powerful motivation tool to keep on going.

Its not so much the failing that’s bothering me but more the fact that I let te guy down after he gave me an entire extra month to finish the damn paper. I just couldn’t research it; the shit was too difficult for me. Oh well, I guess I have to make peace with this somehow.

You shouldn’t look to others for external justification of your personal failures. You’re avoiding the issue and running away doesn’t solve anything. You made your decision that it was easier for you to fail than to confront whatever it is you had to do and now you just want to fool yourself into feeling good about it.

I’ve gotten a D for a Keyboarding class and plenty of Cs but that’s it.

That and I may have been retroactively flunked out of fifth grade but either way I blame it entirely on the faculty being [STRIKE]miserable little piles of secrets[/STRIKE] sore losers.

Fake Edit: And yes Sin does bring up a valid point. Seriously the guy gives you extra time and you still blew it? That’s just sad. :frowning:

Second less fake Edit: And this site needs either a text size or font style that makes text almost completely unreadable without some coping and pasting.

Naw, although I came pretty close for biochem

Fucking biochem

I did once, but only by accident (my worst mark other than that was a B). I was taking Intro to Logic double-time (so the whole course lasted six weeks). Our mark was made up of 2 tests and a final exam. I missed the first test due to illness, so I got back my very first mark of any sort two days before the final exam, at which point I realized I’d been doing absolutely everything wrong. Unfortunately we got no feedback whatsoever up till then. I ended up failing, but I re-took the course and got an A+. (I applied to get the failure removed from my record, but they refused. >_<)

I failed a course on ‘introduction to internet research’ because it was at 8AM with a near 1h30-2h travel time, and I could not bring myself to care enough to wake up at 5AM for it. And they failed me on attendence alone because I did bother to show for exams.

I hate that concept, failure on attendence…before they implemented that shit I could score As and B+ showing up 6 times in the entire semester. :frowning:

Oh well, I guess. What Sin said is actually pretty on the mark for how I’m feeling, and at this point the only thing to do is not do it again.

I’m once again struck by how different our higher education systems are if failing a course seems like such an event.

I bombed English Phonetics 1 and English Grammar 1 on my first year for a number of personal reasons, though most of it being my fault for not caring enough to study as hard as it was required. Phonetics in particular is a “filter” course, which means it’s usually when a lot of the first-timers get beaten so bad, they drop out of the career. Grammar 1 was simply an intensive, way-too-much-fucking-content-in-too-fucking-little-time meatgrinder. It’s really amazing how much those two cut down the number of students, 2nd year courses usually have around 10-20% of the people in first year.

I haven’t failed anything since, though I did bomb a couple finals once or twice (you can take a final 3 times before you need to retake the course). However, and I don’t mean to blow my own horn, I’m quite a rarity and well above the average in terms of performance. It’s very common for people here to fail courses left and right, our system is pretty damn harsh.

I know what you mean about just not being able to bring yourself to write a paper.
Situation-My history final in 11th grade was due. A paper about Bosnia/ Herzegovniajfbhbf (i dont really remember where the fuck it even is, or the correct name). I’m about…3 months pregnant. I purposely scheduled dr. appts and signed myself out for an entire months straight right before that class so I could have extra time. Then, a month after the due date when i finally hand it in(and it wasn;t even a hard paper- like, 2000 words in MLA about their culture or something) the guy tells me he feels bad for me, since i had been so sick and missed class so much.
He even waives the limit to missed classes so i could still get credit for the class even though i missed like, over a month of them and just didnt count the assignments from that time against my grade.
It was like, one of the only times ive felt guilty ever.
I didn’t tell him the truth tho- I only needed a half credit to graduate, and i didnt want a history class tacked onto that. :slight_smile:

I haven’t failed any college classes- that shit it too expensive for me to pay twice!!!

I withdrew from Play production 1 my first time taking it because I never handed in a single damn paper, and was going to fail if I didn’t. Second time I took it, I got accused of plagiarism because “for someone who never wrote me a single damn paper in all the classes I’ve had with you, this is honestly one of the best papers I’ve read in years. I find that suspicious.” …i always point to that as one of my proudest achievements in college, right after making an actor cry.

So yeah, writing papers is hard for me, too. The problem is I usually pick an idea that’s just out of reach for me, and I end up freaking out until the last minute, at which point I eitherjustify I can still pass without it, or jsut half-ass something to get some credit.

I always half ass my papers, but always get A’s or sometimes B’s. I’m a good BS’er, I guess.

I’ve failed a bunch in High School, but that was fucking HS. Who cares about that. So far I have passed everything in Post-Secondary… usually with good marks too. Here’s hoping I stick to that.

Same for meh. I just did well the English parts of the SATs and hoped it would get me into something better than clown college.

fail a course jesus are you retarded

I honestly can’t tell if I failed this one class or successfully dropped it.

I’m not sure if I’ve failed any courses this year. I don’t think so, I might have failed one. It was entirely my own fault, if I did. Don’t get the results for the year 'til the end of the month. I get to repeat in August, even if I do. I just couldn’t care about so many of them this year. It was my own fault and oh well, learned my lesson now.