So, just got done submitting my oceanography midterm. Thought it'd be somewhat easy as it contained some recycled questions from previous quizzes that I've done in the past. Of course, it was the total opposite, using up my time to switch between the textbook and the quiz because it required me to fill in some blanks that were verbatim to the content in the textbook. Some parts were so specific which was extremely frustrating.

Wouldn't be such an issue except for the fact we only had 90 minutes to answer 90 questions, so massive time crunch. Call it a skill issue, but it didn't feel like enough. I managed to complete 55 questions, already knowing I was going to fail once Canvas started the 10-second countdown popup. After it was submitted I checked my answers to see what I got wrong, and for some reason the questions I got correct were marked as partial, contributing to my score going down. So, because of this ordeal, my grade went from a 99 to an 85. My friend, who's also taken the test, managed to get up to question 60 yet performed worse than me due to his responses only getting "partial" credit when they really should be correct.

TL;DR: Failed a midterm due to not having enough time, questions based on specific textbook readings, and responses marked as partial/incorrect when they were done correctly. A friend experiences similar problems yet scores worse despite completing more questions than me.

And if you're neurodivergent, depressed, recovering from trauma, or just tired? It becomes a hostile maze instead of a place to grow.

I’m taking five classes this semester because I failed most of my classes freshmen year and I want to graduate on time with my gf and get out of college asap. Been pushing myself to my limit with the amount of classes and work. Balancing school, job (20-24 hrs/week), relationship, etc. has been nearly impossible. My grades in my classes have gone downhill and I barely know whats going on in many of them. Just feels like school and life is falling apart. Whenever I think about everything I have to do it becomes hard to breathe and I start to panic. I never get enough sleep, most times only around 5 hours. Idk how much longer I can keep up, I’m trying to make it work but its taking a toll on me.

I had originally planned to study Aerospace Engineering in the USA, and had applied to many universities with the same in mind. But after seeing the lack of incentive there in terms of both job opportunities and availability of internships and other openings, I was thinking of switching to Psychology, since not only am I good at it, but I will also find better opportunities in the field in places such as the USA. I have taken IB, and have never gotten below a 6 in Psychology, and got a 7 in both pre-boards, so this just added to my course shift towards Psychology.

My current options are:

1. I go to Penn State for Aerospace engineering (least likely since they're charging a LOT and not providing aid)
2. Go to a good university for Mechanical Engineering in Australia (U of Sydney or U of Melbourne)
3. Apply to USA and other places for Psychology in the spring intake, but that's going to leave an academic deadzone in between where I won't be in school anymore, since IB results and my TC come out in July-ish, and idk how that's going to affect my LORs etc

Since I am very conflicted right now, I thought I'd come to Reddit and ask you all what you would consider to be better through your own knowledge and experience, especially with the current USA college scene (FYI I am an international student, so most jobs in Aerospace are just not available for me).

I'm about to graduate this May and in my final semester my degree requires a capstone class. Instead of writing a final research thesis, we had to choose a previously written paper to edit and enhance, make a poster and presentation, etc. I wanted to choose one paper but my professor encouraged me to choose a different one because it was longer and would require less work to flesh out, even though my first choice was a topic that I'm more interested in, especially with having to do some additional research. Ultimately, I respect my professor a lot and want a grad school rec letter from her, so I went with her suggestion.

So about the paper. Weirdly, most of my classes in my major haven't required long papers. So mine is from a class that is adjacent to my major - still within the humanities/liberal arts and has a thematic tie to my major. The original assignment was a book report with very basic instructions. Literally, "choose ANY book about ANY topic within the historical time period the class covers, write a paper about it, and only include a few other sources if needed, because it's a book report, not a research paper."

How convenient that I found a book on Kindle Unlimited, so it was immediately accessible to me, was a nice short length, and was an easy, concise read. My paper was good, I got an A+ on it and in the class, I really thought I'd never have to think about it again.

At first I didn't stress too much about reworking this paper for my capstone, but now I just discovered that it's written/published by an entity that might be AI generating ebooks? Or just rewriting Wikipedia into a book format?? I really can't find a lot of good info about it - those are just two comments I've seen in reddit posts. It's by Charles River Editors. In my original bibliography I credited it as "independently published." And again, it seemed appropriate for a book report, but my capstone seems like a higher stakes assignment. I know I should've looked into it sooner. Despite not having any pushback or questioning from the original professor who assigned it, nor my capstone class professor or my classmate peer reviewers, now I'm really scared that it's not a legit enough source to be considered for a capstone paper. In my class, all of our papers are going to be considered for publishing through my school's library, and the posters for our presentations will be hung up in the building for the entire next school year - it's just a thing that my school does, I can't not allow it. I don't care if my paper gets published or not, but I'm so worried that the school is gonna think that my source isn't scholarly enough and that somehow I won't get my degree. Or that other students will see my poster and remember me as the girl whose capstone was based on a gimmicky unscholarly source. Ideally this was supposed to be a paper for me to use as a writing sample for grad school apps too, but that's long gone out the window.

I can't change my topic, and I do NOT have time to search for a lot more sources and rewrite it all because I'm so overwhelmed with all of my other classes. Aside from the stress of school I have chronic illness flare ups and can't stop getting sick, and my job has been pretty busy even though I just work part time, and my cat has been sick and vet bills have been insane, and we're descending into fascism in real time. Like can I please have a break??

So if anyone has any advice... am I crashing out over nothing, should I just continue editing my paper and poster as normal and turn them in (they're already slightly past due though deadlines for this class are kinda flexible, but I def need to get them done this week), focus on the big picture of graduating and finishing ALL of my classes, or would it really be better to forgo my health and sleep and find a different book/scholarly articles with the same information and cite those instead so I there aren't any questions of plagiarism, AI, academic dishonesty etc?? And who the hell even is Charles River Editors?????

(TL;DR is it a big deal if my final paper has a shady source and will it ruin my life or is it fine)

Seriously, it's causing me a sore back and neck and it sucks. It's to the point where I can't turn my neck without pain. And I have a fairly thick matress topper, which only has five months use on it at this point. I just can't figure it out.

This is a bit of a vent but I'm sorry, it's just the amount of incompetent people at my college is astounding. For context: I belong in an honors program that's highly selective (around 10% acceptance rate). In this honors program we need to take some different classes than gen ed which usually require more work (mostly in groups). And EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. TIME. I get into a group with my peers they are always extremely lazy. I mean I get procrastinating in college is a normal thing, but I kid you not I'm the only one who does things before the night they're due. I'm also a double major in Finance and Economics with a minor in accounting and am part of 5 clubs, work out, and self-study Chinese for 1 hour each day while taking 6 classes with a 4.0 this semester so it's' not like I have free time every second but come on man.

Just today I organized a group to do an assignment where we need to record a video and meet up, everyone agreed and said they would be there. Everyone said they would notify each other if they can't make it so we could reschedule. Day comes and I'm the only one there, and no one says anything on why they can't make it. In past groups I always finished my things a few weeks before they were due because I knew they were hard and wanted to get them out of the way beforehand when I had free time, but I'm literally the only one who does this that I've seen.

And honestly, everyone in my honors program complains about the work being hard (it really isn't) and spend more time complaining about it than actually doing the assignment. One person I knew wrote a 500-word complaint to my professor about an assignment that only needs 400 words :/ I wouldn't say i'm super intelligent or anything either but holy hell being around these "honors" people makes me feel like I'm the Einstein of time skills and common sense and it kind of freaks me out. I'm starting to get why employers are getting sick of hiring people from my generation if these are the people getting jobs.

I know this might sound pretty cruel, but the number of times I've had to organize people together so we wouldn't fail an assignment in the HONORS PROGRAM astounding. Yes, we're all freshman, but damn it's just so stressful when people don't feel like organizing or doing anything anymore, and I'm getting tired of having to bring people together to complete something because no one else tries to.

Im a bio major and if I do go into a career in my field I want to do lab research. However, with the state of the US government currently, it seems like every day a new research project gets defunded or has their grants removed. Will there even be that many chances for me to get a job in a lab? And if I do, will it even be a stable job or would I just be living in fear of whatever research project I'm working on being defunded?

Hi Reddit - I’m wondering if you can help me out. I go to a really small Christian university in a really small town. I am a senior who will be graduating in the fall. My mental health has been absolutely horrendous since starting college - I was traumatized my freshman year by what someone on campus did to me and I took a semester off to undergo intense therapy (which is why I’m graduating in the fall instead of the spring). I had meetings about this with my schools student life office - basically they made me sign documents saying that everything I told them is true, meanwhile the person who traumatized me went on to become a representative for the school (they’re in all of the marketing posts, they lead a club on campus, and they’re an RA now). It’s like the thing they did to me never happened. I’ve heard similar stories from my friends and in some cases, the university makes students involved in these types of incidents pay a fine of at least $100. Flash forward to this week - an anonymous instagram page called “[name of my university] mental health” appeared and started posting responses from a google form where students could talk about their experiences at the university I go to. I did not start the page, but a majority of the responses were similar to my experience my freshman year - “I don’t want to talk about what another student did to me because the student life office will make me feel bad about it.” “Every time I try to talk to someone about problems I experience at the university, I’m told that it’s all in my head” “I made one mistake my freshman year and now I feel like I have no support at this university.” Now, my college does do typical “Christian college stuff” - chapel 4 days a week, no alcohol or you have to pay a $300 fine and take a two week alcohol class, only visit the opposite sex dorm rooms between 6:30-10:30 two days a week and all the lights have to be on and someone checks the room every hour, all buildings are closed after 1 am, etc. But a majority of students, including myself, feel that my university is not open to having real conversations. Students are afraid to talk to someone about their experiences because they’re worried they’ll have to pay a fine or can’t be involved in campus activities anymore. In my opinion, my university’s student life office has a huge bias towards students who are RAs, ARAs, and in certain clubs, and many other students agree with this. The mental health instagram page was taken down within a couple of days because “freshman don’t want to go here any more” and “the responses are just targeted toward the university and we won’t tolerate that” but the way my university works is that if you go to the people in charge with these legitimate concerns, you will not be listened to because they think you’re “not spending enough time with God” and you “just need to pray about it.” When I went through my trauma my freshman year, all I did was sign documents saying it happened and that I was involved. Nothing was done to make sure I was truly okay (I was not). Many students at my university feel the university is not taking a good approach to mental health, but they’re too scared to say anything about it, which is why they were using the instagram page. My question is - how exactly can I advocate for change at my university without breaking any of the rules my university has put in place? My university’s student life office would benefit so much by reading anonymous feedback from their students, but so many people are scared to come forward because they’re worried they won’t receive the support they need. What steps can I take to try and make change happen at my university? I am so sorry this is so long, but any advice is appreciated!! Thank you!!

TL;DR: struggling with mental health and trauma, the school seems to ignore my situation while promoting my trauma source, now an anonymous instagram page created this week posted similar struggles from other students, but no one can actually go to the school for help because they’re too scared they’ll get in trouble or get fined. how can i help change this?

I am in a group project with two exchange students who are basically here just to party. They're obviously using ChatGPT for everything.

If you're going to use it, at least don't be an idiot about it. My groupmates left the "I don't have enough data..." and their PROMPTS in the text, and then proceeded to list their "sources" from places like Wikipedia, Scribd, and Studocu. The last two are basically sites where people upload their homework for others to use, usually considered academic dishonesty/cheating. The report also needed to be written in paragraph form, obviously, and they gave me the pasted answers Chat always gives where it's in bullet point or numbered list form.

If I hadn't caught that, we would've all gotten in serious trouble.

Tl;dr: Group project members almost got us in trouble by very obviously using ChatGPT

Like, I feel like I've been doing so well in my classes so far. I pretty much have A's and B's but I feel like I'm going to be so on edge for the final exams that I'm going to fail.

Same thing happened to me during my high school days

My final exams I was stressing to the max and I ended up barely passing some of my tests.

How do you guys handle this type of stress?

The one thing I notice more in this subreddit than any other college related subreddit is how much people are on a high horse here. You could be working several jobs and going to school full time. People's response? Stop working so much. Why are you in school? But if you're struggling to read a lot or adjust to college settings? You're not working hard enough and shouldn't be in school. Both of these, along with the many other crazy interactions I've seen here do not realize that people are in different situations with different privileges and experiences. It's astonishing that people don't realize for one some people might not have the ability to not work through school, or that maybe they have learning disabilities that have gone undiagnosed. I know my ADHD and dyslexia felt like it got worse when I started college. It's also just disheartening to see what I assume are young students coming in here to vent and rant about a specific experience only to see them get ripped to shreds. How does that help anyone?? Struggle, exhaustion and pain are all relative and subjective.

I’m suffering, I knew it was gonna happen and I knew it had to happen, I’ve gone through 20 emotions in a day, relief, anger, pain, crying, acceptance, anger again, crying again, and so on

I know this is going to be a process, I just know I either have to repress everything to focus on studies, or melt and fail out of my college I’m scared and it’s going down man

Hi, first time posting here i just wanted to rant and hear some perspectives from other people.

I'm a second year student at a decent engineering school, and i've recently been consumed by my own thoughts on what i've done so far up to this point. I've attempted to switch majors almost 3 times now and I feel that I haven't put enough thought into each switch, leaving me out of my depth for anything I try to do. I haven't made any meaningful friends throughout my college career and I haven't done any on-campus activities at all, and that realization that I haven't had anything to show for my undergraduate career hit me when I started seeing what my other peers have been doing in college.

For some reason, likely a combination of procrastination and being antisocial, I haven't applied myself to anything like research or gotten any experience that would be relevant for an internship or job, and since I just made this realization now it's too late to really do anything for this summer. If I were to apply for research positions or other student organizations next semester I'm worried about being disadvantaged in applications since I'm a junior without any relevant experiences, and a lot of the academic clubs and project teams at my school are competitive and require applications.

I keep getting hung up on the mistakes I made over just the past year and a half that have piled up to put me in this spot, and I can't even focus on my coursework because my mind has been so clouded with regret. Is it too late for me to pick up the remainder of my undergrad? What have other people in this situation done to get themselves out of it?

I like how when I have to clean the floors or vacuum rugs during my shift (you know... because it's my job?) it's randomly an issue because my managers wanna be picky and sit in the dining room for their "private meeting."

Like they will tell me to stop vacuuming even if I was there first, just so they can have their precious little meeting about hospitality or something.

We have an entire back room ment for privacy for coworkers or for lunch breaks. Nobody should have been on lunch break at the time, so why don't the managers... I don't know... use that room so none of us are bothering each other????

It's so simple man. I wouldn't want to hog tables for potential guests anyway so why do so???

I don't know. I'm leaving my job for the summer but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I should bother coming back.

This is mostly going to be a vent, but if anyone has gone through something similar, i would love to hear from you.

So i am officially wrapping up my first year of university, and it has been nothing like i expected. I went in hoping for a fresh start, a chance to meet new people, find my path, and enjoy this chapter of life. Instead, i ended up on a small satellite campus that felt isolating, had very few resources, and lacked any real sense of community. There were barely any events, nothing to really look forward to, and making genuine connections felt impossible.

I commuted, which made things even worse, but it wasnt just that. Even though i did make some friends, i recently had to cut ties after realizing they werent the type of people that i thought ther were. It sucks to feel like you are starting over again, especially when school stress is piling up on top of everything else. I have failed some of my classes last semester, and my mental health really took a hit.

I will be transferring to the main campus next semester where things should be better hopefully. From what i see, there are definitely more opportunities, more people, and more to do, but right now, i just feel stuck and exhausted. I already know that transferring is the right move for me, but this whole experience has left me feeling jaded.

If anyone else had a rough first year or ended up transferring, how were you able to cope? Did things get better eventually?

Seriously, why do people say college is better than highschool? I’m about to end my freshman year and college has been nothing but stress. Everything is 10x harder, and if I want to get good grades I have to sacrifice so much of my free time. There are higher risks to everything I do, and I can barely handle it. I hate living in a dorm, the room is so small and even using the shower or going to the bathroom is annoying because people play music, have TikToks on, or are on a phone call. I just want to go back to highschool but ugh I can’t, I’m gonna have 3 more years of this ughhhhh.

400/500 level class. Terrible, rude and lazy teacher. He gives us 2 group projects that make up most of our grade. The groups are assigned by alphabetical order of first names.

Project 1. My group absolutely sucks. Our group 'leader' takes the easiest and fastest part of the project, takes 5 days to do it, STILL needed help with it even though there was a literal video of how to do it and then proceeded to ghost us for the rest of the project, including almost not turning in the project on time all together.

Our presentation was by far the worst presentation and I was so embarrassed.

That is why I was LIVID when we got assigned to the SAME group and then, for some reason the other 4 people in the group voted to have the SAME group leader AGAIN. She, once again, proceeded to pick the easiest and fastest part of the project along with her friend and essentially told the other 3 of us to figure out the rest.

This time I tried to pin her down with expectations and a time line only to be met with a "well discuss it later" and "well why don't you come up with some things you'd like to change" BITCH YOUR THE FUCKING LEADER?!

She even had the audacity to say "no one person should make all the decisions" when I asked what part of the project I should work on. OMFG.

If she thinks for one second I won't hesitate to throw her under the bus during the peer review part of the assignment she's insane. I'm waiting for the "meeting" this Sunday (last time it was just a bunch of 'well what do you want to do? No what do you want to do?) Before just straight up emailing my professor. Though he's a POS to so idk what good it will do.

I hate this class. I'm so disappointed too because I was looking foward to this topic. The projects are barely related to the subject of the class and the instructor has no idea what he's doing.

Studied so hard for this exam. Fifty percent of my grade. Got a 75. Took my grade from a C to a C. One number percent difference. There is only two more exams, a final worth twenty five after the last lecture exam. I already dropped my biology class because I was almost failing that as well. I just hate myself why am I so stupid. I can’t do anything lately, I even quit my job. I’m so depressed it’s ruining me, I don’t enjoy anything anymore, I’m so lonely. I even go to a cc, I have a 3.7 and I’m failing a chem class. The last day to drop is today.

God I thought I did so well. I was so confident. The answers made sense. I can’t, if this was the easiest test (what he said) and I got this score I cannot do well. I don’t believe in myself. I don’t even wanna work in medicine man I just wanna be happy I hate everything so much rn

so...i went to check canvas because i noticed something got graded over spring break and was like "oh! lets check my grade real quick!"

then I noticed i got an assignment missing for an assignment i remembered doing then was like "wait...I thought I submitted this"

turns out i converted it to a pdf but never submitted it 😭😭😭 IT WAS DUE LAST WEEK AND THE WINDOW TO SUBMIT IT CLOSED YESTERDAY 😭😭😭

to be fair i had a paper i was worrying about that week + a programming assignment i was worrying about too so like...it slipped my mind

sent an email explaining what happened but the likelihood of my prof accepting it is like 0 so 😭

anyway...yeah this is completely on me ngl 🧍‍♂️

Hate McGraw hill smart book assignments.

I know they're supposed to help us but each one for me is like 70+ concepts and takes like 2-3 hours each

Finished an 81 concept in only 45 minutes 🙏

So each question is used twice, and only when you get 2 of each question correct does one of the bars become full. So duplicate the question and answer it twice to get it done quicker. Reading the chapter makes it go so much faster

Edit: sorry if that was confusing, here's a better explanation

When you're doing the assignments, duplicate your tab, answer correctly on the new tab, go back to the original tab refresh and answer correctly. Continue to the next question on the original tab and just repeat. The process gets better after trying it for a little. Ctrl+R refreshes the page for me so when I click on my og tab I just tap that, and then answer rq.

Seriously how am I supposed to have time for this working 4 jobs and taking 3 other classes? Plus one of the other classes has a group project. And I'm an ONLINE student.

So I have a paper said to be due on Saturday, as explained in the rubric. But on Canvas, it says that the due date is on Sunday. Would I be held accountable if I submit it on Sunday?

[EDITED]

I’ll just submit it on Saturday just in case.

Q1: Why don’t you email them? Answer: They don’t respond to their emails from my experience.

Q2: Why don’t you just ask them? Answer: I can’t because they canceled class this week and we meet only once in-person. Couldn’t do it last week because of an exam and still couldn’t do it the week prior because of spring break.

Q3: Why don’t you forgive them? Answer: I’m not even angry lol I’m just confused is all. Though it does stress me slightly when this occurence happens.

Q4: Why don’t you just follow the syllabus? Answer: They don’t exactly follow the syllabus dates to a T due to sometimes canceling class since some obstacles were in the way. The paper was said to be due on Saturday and was stated so in the rubric for the assignment, but the Canvas date spoke otherwise.

WHY THE FUCK DID YOU GIVE US A 12-PAGE 4000 LEVEL BIOCHEMISTRY EXAM THAT'S 30% OF OUR GRADE AND WE GET 45 MINUTES TO TAKE IT?!

AND YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO SAY "WOW, OUT OF 120 OF YOU, ONLY 1 OF YOU DID ALL 12 PAGES!" WHOSE FUCKING FAULT IS THAT?! WE'RE ALL GOING TO FAIL YOUR FUCKING CLASS BECAUSE YOU CAN'T GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS TO TEST WHAT YOU ACTUALLY TEACH!

I'm so tired man...I need to graduate.

I’m graduating soon and I wanted to go to grad school. I applied to 15 programs for physics and astrophysics and I’ve been rejected by 12. All my mentors and professors thought I would get in, and grad school has been my plan for a very long time. My research experience and summer REUs have all been research focused. I’m not sure how to pivot into looking for a job, since I have no connections in the job field. I’ve started applying to jobs but I already know it’s too late. I can’t move back home and my savings are dwindling. My life is starting to look really bleak. Is anyone going through/has gone through something similar? I’m really scared and I’m not sure what to do.