School

I love being a student here at Tech. I love that atmosphere- a bit NOVA/VA Beach, a bit country. Even the crazy weather is enjoyable. Its a really nice blend of everything, and I hope to stay down around Blacksburg for quite a while.


The only thing is, I've begun to realize how much I need to step it up if I'm going to stay here for the next 7 years. The average GPA for freshmen entering the Virginia-Maryland Regional School of Veterinary Medicine was a 3.8 last year. Not many GPA's were lower, and quite a few were higher.

Not only is that daunting as a goal to look up to, but if the trend of increasing the necessary GPA needed to enter a regular four-year college continues- and we project that to an increase in the GPA needed to enroll in Vet. school, what does that leave me with? In four years I could very well need a 4.0 to enter professional school. Do you know how difficult that is?

I ended my first semester in college with a 2.78. Thats 1 whole point less than my high school GPA (3.78). And thats even further away from the mean of entering vet. school student's. Even further depressing is the fact that a 2.78 is a pretty good GPA; its not great, but it roughly equates to a B-. That's above average already.

So this semester, my goal is to try and get a ridiculously high GPA to try and balance out that first semster. Hopefully I can pull off a 3.3 or 3.4 for the first year... and then keep increasing my GPA as the years go on and classes get harder.

Part of the challenge is the heavy influence of exam grades on the over all class grade (most of the time those being the only grades). The first exam for each class is always the most difficult because you have yet to learn the teacher's testing style, so you can't study as well and are inadequately prepared. Today I took my first exam of the semester; a biology exam on plants. It was 50 questions long- 49 multiple choice and one short answer. Although the exam wasn't that difficult, it covered six chapters and was quite a lot of information. At the end of the exam, the answers were posted on a wall outside of the class room for reference. I should get a 76 without a curve (though hopefully there will be one). Now, a 76 is a C, and a pretty decent grade- but with only two other grades to average into the total- its not looking to hot. Luckily most professors don't want to see their students do to miserably, so they give us an extra exam so the lowest grade can be dropped.

With that 3.8 looming in the distance, I'm really grateful for the chance to boost a class grade.
Speaking of which, I have to go study some chemistry.

Let's go HOKIES!