how do you turn your life around at the university level?

[lightthecandle]

i'm not sure if that sentence above made any sense. but i just want to know for those going back to school, mainly college, or who did bad their first, or whatever year, andthen geared up and attempted to get back in the groove of truly excelling...HOW DID YOU DO IT???

[Lychee]

Find a worthy ideal and persist until you become or achieve that ideal. Let that ideal be the fuel of your passion and things will roll naturally from there.

[sadavis00]

Don't think in terms of "turning things around", just try to do the best you can. If you got a 1.5 GPA first year, accept that you got a 1.5 GPA first year and you probably won't be able to jump to a 4.0 GPA second year. But, that does not mean you can't improve a bit, try to get a higher GPA. You're parents won't be happy if you improve "only" a bit, but you should be - they simply don't that excellence is an activity and not a thing.

One bad thing about the "turning it around" mentality is that it will make you regret your past, it will make you regret you life, you may even start to blame yourself. I have much felt better ever since I stopped trying to "turn myself around", as if there was something seriously wrong with me. I will do my best, and f**k the rest. (Incidentally, I was a good student in first year, and still am, but due to the "turn it around" thinking in other areas of my life, I was miserable, not so anymore).

[Kaspian]

My brother didn't do so well in high school, chose not to go to college right away, and felt somewhat inferior to the people around him for a few years. Eventually, he decided he didn't like the kind of work he was doing and the quality of people he worked with and decided to go to massage school. There, he got a taste of biology, anatomy, and physiology. It ignited his interest. Because the subjects fascinated him, he chose to learn things in more detail than was assigned, found college lectures on the internet, and sailed through school easily.

In short, if you're truly interested in what you're doing, it'll be easier to do well—not because you're concerned with your performance, but because you enjoy learning.

[morathi]

On my second year, I took some extra lessons and couldn't handle the work overload... So I did poorly. Next year, I took less lessons than usual and tried to focus on them, in order to feed my self-steem. Getting good grades feels good, even though you have less lessons

[Zukin]

In my case, it was switching from engineering school to liberal arts

Steve's article Do It Now is the best thing on college effectiveness I've ever read.

[brooke]

I did not really excel in school before I found a career path that was right for me. I was in college for almost 3 years before I was introduced to the field of social work. Before this time, I took classes, did assignments, studied for tests because I had to (it was always expected that I would graduate from college). There was no passion. Once I found social work I did all those things because I truly wanted to learn. I loved my classes, loved my internship, loved the people I was interacting with because I clicked with them. I think that was the biggest key to my success and motivation in college was just finding the thing that I really connected with.

[Gyanish Gungaram]

For me, it's focusing on short term goals that will help me achieve my long term goal.

For example,

Long term goal = Excel as a surgeon

Short Goal = Master Anatomy, Surgery, etc....

Hope you get the idea...