Advice Needed

General Discussion for SMART Scholarship Recipients
struggling-student

Advice Needed

Post by struggling-student »

I need some advice on the scholarship/internship.

I accepted this award last year, my freshman year of college, and at the time, saw no way of my GPA falling below a 3.0. I struggled in the Spring of 2018, my freshman year spring semester, because of some very difficult times in my life, I was very depressed and found it hard to do anything, let alone school work. This fall things seemed to get easier school wise, and I was able to bring my GPA up. This spring, sophomore spring semester 2019, things got very difficult again. I'll admit I didn't take care of myself very well, didn't eat normally, couldn't ever sleep, and I found myself with no concentration or determination. Most days I found myself falling asleep in class. Up until the week of finals, even with all of these struggles, I had done okay grade-wise and figured my GPA would be fine. I ended up not finishing very strong, and my GPA dropped to a 2.96. I am not sure what to do about this. I know I will be given one semester to pull this up, and it would require a decent GPA, for me at least, to bring it up to the SMART standard of a 3.0. I need to maintain this scholarship because if I were to lose it, there is no way my family or I could pay back all of the funds owed to LMI, and my current tuition. Can someone please provide me with some advice as to what I should do? Should I back out of the program, and take a deep chunk of debt, or should I work my butt off next semester? I'm hoping there is a least one other person who has been in my shoes that can help. Any advice is appreciated.

Buck-Up

Re: Advice Needed

Post by Buck-Up »

Understand that every case is special and you need to decide on what's most important to you. No one can make this decision for you, and I advise that you don't take any advice given here too seriously.

With that said, you also need to understand that YOU ARE A STUDENT FIRST! Anything that's going on in your personal life (financial troubles, spouse/significant other issues, family troubles, etc) all come second. I do not know your personal life or what happened to cause your depression, but you need to work on that (easier said than done. I get that). You can't be a good student if you're depressed, because you won't have the motivation. That's something you'll need to work through or seek help with -- your mental health should be your top priority (even if that means clearance issues due to a diagnosis).

Go through the finances of everything and talk to banks about possible loans. There are many banks that'll give you a loan for the current amount owed to SMART. If you decide to leave the program you won't be in too much trouble.

I had a professor my freshman year that told our class "You can either suffer now, or you can suffer for the rest of your life." He was referring to school and the difficulties of it. You have two years left to pull your grades up, and the reward for finishing will far out-weight the consequences for dropping out and going into repayment.

Decide on what you value and want to do.

help5

Re: Advice Needed

Post by help5 »

struggling-student wrote:I need some advice on the scholarship/internship.

I accepted this award last year, my freshman year of college, and at the time, saw no way of my GPA falling below a 3.0. I struggled in the Spring of 2018, my freshman year spring semester, because of some very difficult times in my life, I was very depressed and found it hard to do anything, let alone school work. This fall things seemed to get easier school wise, and I was able to bring my GPA up. This spring, sophomore spring semester 2019, things got very difficult again. I'll admit I didn't take care of myself very well, didn't eat normally, couldn't ever sleep, and I found myself with no concentration or determination. Most days I found myself falling asleep in class. Up until the week of finals, even with all of these struggles, I had done okay grade-wise and figured my GPA would be fine. I ended up not finishing very strong, and my GPA dropped to a 2.96. I am not sure what to do about this. I know I will be given one semester to pull this up, and it would require a decent GPA, for me at least, to bring it up to the SMART standard of a 3.0. I need to maintain this scholarship because if I were to lose it, there is no way my family or I could pay back all of the funds owed to LMI, and my current tuition. Can someone please provide me with some advice as to what I should do? Should I back out of the program, and take a deep chunk of debt, or should I work my butt off next semester? I'm hoping there is a least one other person who has been in my shoes that can help. Any advice is appreciated.
I had a major grade slip my first semester with SMART due to a medical issue that wasn't handled properly with the University. I ended up failing most of my finals (like 40-50% of your final grade type finals). It didn't get below a 3.0, but I was too close for comfort and would need to get mostly an above a B in most of my classes from then on. I didn't like it, but I made the decision to work really hard to try to make up the difference. Almost 5 semester later and I have made up half the points I lost. It honestly didn't take thatmuch more effort. It was just a constant effort of checking every homework answer with friends, studying an extra 1-2 hours before each exam, giving 10% more effort on projects, and not being afraid to ask professors for help. I even worked with professors and my university for medical exception forms to prevent what happened from happening again.

It is definitely your choice, as mentioned above. Personally, I would try your best instead of dropping now. Either it works out or it doesn't and SMART drops you. The only difference between you dropping out now and them dropping you after next semester due to grades is an additional semester to pay back.

wonderer

Re: Advice Needed

Post by wonderer »

how old are you and what is your family situation?

i agree with most of what buck up said, but i think the applicability of the advice depends on your situation

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