Academic Probation is a term many students have heard even before joining their high school. So you ended up doing what you feared the worst, seeing your hopes and dreams of that perfect academic record crashing down after reading that GPA score knowing full well you’ve screwed up big time, failing yourself and your parents, not to mention the possibility that you’re now the hottest subject of those countless auntie gossips in the extended family. Moreover, seeing your peers running around with better scores at hand adds to the frustration of it. Yup, we can fully confirm that you might just be heading for one of your lowest points of your time here, and that’s where we want to let you know there’s a way to make it all work out, a shot, an opportunity to set things right again but it’s gonna take patience, effort, and some determination, so bear with us as we’ll try to get you back on track for that graduating dream of yours.
When we first came to GIKI, we never really realized we signed up for a game where we were risking one full year (in some cases more) of our lives to maybe getting a degree after four years. Unfortunately, that’s the cold white light of reality of the place we live in and there’s not much that can be done to undo the past. There’ll always be a good chunk of students who end up below the margin every year, that’s the harshness of the place. GIKI isn’t GIKI without probations, or at least that’s what the general audience here would think so. Not only that, it’s painfully heartbreaking to know that from here on out, your other friends from other universities might be scoring in 3.5+ (yes, even the not so smart ones) while here even a 2.6 is considered a good struggle, but that’s a different topic altogether. We’ll talk about the matter at hand for now. Probations.
The first stage to face is acceptance (after of course, trying for a possibility for re-check if you have a legitimate claim for more) knowing you’ve hit rock bottom, the sooner you accept and move on the better. stressing over it and constantly pacing around isn’t going to solve or amount to anything. Take a moment, with deep breaths and all, remind yourself it’s not the end of the world just yet.
Acceptance, the sooner the better.
The second thing you’ll wanna do is start preparing for the upcoming semester. Have a plan in mind what courses will you be dropping (in case you didn’t know, you’ll be required to drop down to a maximum of 13 or 14 credit hours), whether you’ll be up to repeat a course you know you can do better in, what’s to be left for the summer semester if you intend to take it (Do not leave courses that are a basic prerequisite for others such as MT-101 or PH-101, that’s bound to delay your degree), how and when will you make up for your lost courses. Map this out carefully and logically because it might just be what you’ll be sticking with from now on.
Meet up with your academic advisor as soon as the semester starts (yes, every faculty of every batch has one) it’s your job to find out who that someone is. Meet up with them, fully explain your situation, do not panic, and propose the line of action you’ve already planned out. Discuss extensively the reasons for the choices in your plan and watch out for any sort of friction and try resolving it with minimum shuffling. There might be some heavy modifications or none at all depending on how you chose to do things but the end plan made will probably be the best.
You now have an action plan you’ll closely want to follow, like a new year’s resolution of sorts.The next job is to gear up. Get yourself dedicated registers for course notes and practicing, stock up on assignment sheets. Plan out a timetable you’ll want to abide by (it’s kind of sissy, but hey, it works for most!). You’ll realize that you’ll have a lot more time to yourself due to dropping courses, leave slots for studying after classes, hanging out with your friends, sports, society activities, and quiz revisions. understand that studying full time really isn’t a solution, but dedicating time and energy when required to do so is.
Practice practice practice!
Now for one of the more controversial steps, cutting down on your socials. If you’re in a society, talk to the head about your situation and ask for a less intensive role this semester, they’re usually very understanding people and will definitely try to help you out. if you’re juggling two or more, consider yourself managing them with the added responsibility of saving your undergrad life, working for a society/team is entirely pointless if you won’t be there the next year. If your heads fail to offer a decent solution to work things out then we think it’s time you consider your future with them.
Know that it kind of is your fault you brought yourself into this mess in the first place, could be your study habits, your company, or a misjudge of priorities. Identify your mistakes and keep away from repeating them. Instead, try to get along with the more well off kids, get them or seniors to help you out with some basic concepts you might lack, take sessions or even make a study group, just don’t excessively waste time!
Clean up your mess in the smoothest possible way.
Visit your instructors on possible confusing lecture topics asap, get the know how of how things work, what’s expected in quizzes, assignments, and CLO’s. They might be able to help you out on a whole new level opening a lot of doors along the way. Just don’t shy off!
Try not to miss out on too many classes from now on. Absentees are something that’s not really meant to be taken for granted. Every lecture is going to count for something and it’s on you to absorb it to the best of your abilities, take notes on those new registers we asked you to get, study the course outline carefully, try to do all the assignments on your own but never go without submitting them, every absolute mark counts! When in your room practice and revise all the new things you’ve learned (you might even find a few things interesting) and for God’s sake, practice!
Absentees are not for granted!
Now for the hardest part of it all, sticking with the plan. It goes without saying more than 90% of people tend to fail their new year’s resolution in the first two weeks, quite frankly, this won’t be any different, we really want you guys to be the 10% that go according to plan. Motivate yourself that you have aims like when you first got here, dreams of a better life, motives for repaying all the effort your parents have put into you, showing that GIKI had a reason for choosing you from the thousands of applicants every year and thriving in pride for the people who want to see you succeed. It’s a sink or swim situation and it’s up to you on how you handle it.
DO NOT LOSE HOPE!
And finally, the most important thing this article will ask of you. Under no circumstances, must you never, ever, everrr, lose hope, because once you do, you know going back is gonna be more difficult than ever before. It’s the thing you’ll need to power through the next few months and we really couldn’t simplify this anymore. We already told you what to do but keeping up with it is all on you not because we can’t help you with it but because you’re the only one who can follow through with it. Tell yourself why you’re here, why do you want to graduate out of this particular institution, who are you doing all this for and what will you need to do so to achieve that, it’s easier said than done, and it comes down to you to struggle for it.
And of course, good luck and make us proud. Go get ’em!
A GIKI BlogPost Original
This blog is taken from the GIKI BlogPost and all the credit goes to them. All thanks to GIKI Alumni Association and to the one and only Rayyan Zahid (Batch 24) – Vice President Marketing – GIKI Alumni Association.
Rayyan Zahid is serving a role that aims to grow and maintain one of the greatest collection of human capital in Pakistan. His responsibilities revolve around building a nexus of opportunities from a network consisting of 6000+ professionals from 70+ countries that are part of the alumni association. He also served as Assistant Manager E-Commerce for Reckitt Benckiser in the past and is currently settled as Climate Reality Leader in United States.
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