Time to Step Up

Can you believe the spring semester is almost half over?  That's right.  In less than a week we'll be at the halfway point.  Then it's a mere seven weeks (eight if you count the Passover/Easter break) until everything wraps up.

If this news really isn't news--if you've been keeping an eye on the calendar and keeping up in your classes--you can stop reading now and go back to what you were doing.  Congrats for being on top of your education.

But if the "it's-almost-midterms" message makes you gasp--and worry that you're in trouble in your classes--you definitely need to read on. 

To be sure, there's no need to reach for the panic button, at least at this point.  Seven weeks is a long stretch.  No matter how the first half of the semester has gone, there's still enough time to catch up on papers, projects, required readings, etc. and finish strong.

But you do need to act--and sooner rather than later. You need to find those syllabuses you got in January and see what lies ahead in each of your classes.  You need to take yourself to the Math or Writing Center (or some other campus service) and get whatever help you need.  You need to knock on your professors' doors during office hours and have some frank conversations about where you stand in your classes and how you can catch up. 

And above all, you need to get working.  No time to lose.

If by some chance you've decided that it makes sense for you to withdraw from one (or more) of your classes and concentrate on the remaining ones, remember that you still need to withdraw officially. Don't just disappear from a class, which will result in a UW grade, which will be calculated as an F in your grade-point average, and which won't make you happy.  In case you're wondering, you can still get an automatic Withdrawal if you file the paperwork by the April 4 deadline. 

But withdrawing is an absolute last resort.  It's almost always better to finish and to have something to show for your time.  Achievement matters--in college and everywhere else. 

What with snowstorms, class cancellations, late openings, and early closings (plus a week off for George Washington and company), the first weeks of the spring semester have been anything but ideal. Life is indeed imperfect.  But you can't let your education be undermined by circumstances.  

You have to move forward.  You have to step up, at moments like this, and take care of business.