I am a second year university student and I started off my undergrad career with a 3.67/4.33 GPA in my first semester of my first year. To be fair, I only took 3 courses (worth 10 credits all together; one was a 4 credit course). Then, the next semester, (Year 1, Semester 2) I took more courses and my GPA stayed at 3.67/4.33. However, I became clinically depressed during that second semester for multiple reasons and my parents forced me to take a break (and prozac) instead of taking summer classes. Then, I came back to school in the fall (Year 2, Semester 1) and ended up with a semester GPA of 2.93/4.33 which brought down my overall GPA to 3.44/4.33. I was discouraged but, at this point, my depression was in remission and that was all I really cared about. To me, it was "I didn't do well this semester, seeing as I ended with a 2.93 semester GPA, but at least I don't feel like crying and killing myself everyday anymore." Then, last semester (Year 2, Semester 2), I started an unsuccessful job hunt, which involved making resumes and cover letters as well as preparing for and doing interviews, while going to school and ended up with a 2.21/4.33 semester GPA because I received a B, a B minus, and 2 C minuses for the four classes that I took which brought down my overall GPA to 3.08/4.33. I am currently doing summer classes, for the first time, right now (Year 2, Semester 3) and although the semester is not over yet, I am terrified because I am on the verge of failing one of my classes because I failed one of the exams for this course (this is the first time I've ever experienced failing an exam in university; I failed one or two exams back in high school but in university, this is the first time) and I'm getting a B minus and a C plus for my other classes and I'm afraid those grades are going to get lower as well because I handed in term papers that I do not think are very well written for both of those courses. I calculated what would happen if the grades I'm currently getting in my classes right now end up as my final grades and worst case scenario is I get a 1.50/4.33 semester GPA and this would turn my overall GPA into 2.79/4.33. To put things into perspective, if a student has an overall GPA below 2.00/4.33, then the student is put on probation. I know that because the predicted 1.50/4.33 GPA is a semester GPA and not what my overall GPA would be, that I don't have to worry about this but I fear that I will have to worry about it in the future. Looking at the decline in my overall GPA from the first semester (3.67) to my most recently completed semester (3.08) as well as my predicted GPA for this semester (2.79), I fear that it's going to keep dropping until I graduate and that I will eventually end up on probation maybe around Year 3, Semester 2 because of the downward trend that my overall GPA is showing. I just feel so inadequate especially because I keep hearing success stories of people who started out with low GPAs in their 1st year, 1st semester and began to crawl their way up and eventually end up with high GPAs meanwhile instead of crawling my way up, I am slipping down unintentionally. I keep overanalyzing about what I'm doing wrong and why I'm not doing as well as I used to…I've come up with so many (probably false) theories as to why I'm doing worse in school these days, including but not limited to the number hours I spend at school, my motivation levels which have their own theories from me as to why they fluctuate so much, the time of year because it's summer, the effects of taking and then quitting antidepressants as well as sleeping pills on my brain chemistry, the fact that I'm still job hunting unsuccessfully, the amount of time I spend with friends instead of studying, the amount of time I sleep instead of studying, the amount of time I waste on TV and the internet instead of studying, the fact that some courses I take are outside of my major and thus are not in my area of interest, and even the history of my education and how I've been taught in the past. And as you can see, none of this over-analyzation is helping me but I keep doing it because I feel like if I find the problem, then I can fix it. But the amount of energy I am exerting trying to find the root cause of why I am no longer getting As could instead be put towards studying for the courses I'm taking right now but I can't seem to stop looking for the reason and pining over the past successes of my academic life. A high undergraduate GPA is really important to me because I have dreams of going to grad school and we all know that the higher your overall GPA is, the more edge you have over other applicants (experience counts too but GPA definitely matters). I am just really upset about all of this and anybody I try to talk to about it just tells me that "it's okay" and I feel like yelling in their face and saying "it's not f*cking okay!" but of course, I don't because I do not have the guts to say such things to people in real life. So I posted here instead. I don't know if anyone is going to take the time to read this but if you do, maybe you'll be able to relate.
