Why You Should Never Give Up

As I wrote in one of the previous sections, your professors want you to succeed. They are willing to do whatever they can to help you do that. Much of your education, however, is in your hands.

Avoid self-defeating rationalizations like “I’m not good at math” or “I’ve never been a good writer” or “I just don’t like Geography” or “My teacher is boring, which is why I’m not earning a good grade in Geology.” Those attitudes are the mental equivalent of throwing up your hands in defeat and giving up. Consider telling yourself, “I need to see my teacher after class” or “I could go to the writing lab for individual writing help” or “I’m going to ask my professor why s/he thinks I need to be learning Geography for a Nursing major” or “I’m going to earn a good grade in this class to improve my GPA.”

If you are attending classes, taking notes, participating, keeping up with your readings, and overstudying, and you still are not achieving the goals you set for yourself, go and see your professors. They live to give students individual attention. Professors sit in their offices for several hours a week just waiting to give students individual help. (Here’s a secret about professors: They wish they could teach all of their students individually. Unfortunately, the higher education system in the United States is not constructed to do that [though it is in some elite schools in the UK], and so professors resign themselves to giving individual help to every student who will ask for it. But, as with most of your education, you have most of the responsibility for claiming it, and professors cannot give you individual instruction if you do not see them individually.)

Never give up without consulting your professors first. I know that students think it is acceptable to drop a class, and in some cases it is, but for students who are working hard, dropping a class is rarely the answer to a problem.