I aced my first college test, and it ruined my first semester.
The first test of my college career was in freshman chemistry — Chem 12. A 20-ish question, multiple-choice test, 6:30 at night in the forum. Right or wrong answers only. No partial credit for showing your work.
I hadn’t done the homework (the professor didn’t collect homework). Extra problems for practice? You gotta be kidding me. I didn’t study. I intended to, I really did, but I was too busy having fun with all my new friends.
I walked into the test nervous because I didn’t know what to expect, and I knew I hadn’t studied. But here’s the thing — the first month of Chem 12 was just a review of everything I already knew from chemistry in high school and I was pretty good at taking tests.
An hour later, I handed in my scantron paper with a smile and walked out thinking, “That was a breeze. This college thing is easy like high school!”
And that screwed the rest of my semester. I did the minimum, thinking I’d get maximum scores, just like that first chemistry test.
The result? A 2.6 GPA, which included a C+ in Chem 12 (a steep dive after the first test) and a C in Econ 14.
The second lesson about learning that I figured out by the end of my first semester was “do the work.” Study for the test. Do the practice problems. Yes, even the extra ones.
