Midterms are a stressful time for so many college students.  Everything’s due all at once, all the classes start having exams, you usually have forgotten it even was midterms so you didn’t prepare for it; it’s a mess.  But if you’re reading this, you’ve presumably survived it.  Congratulations!

But what if your grade doesn’t look as good as you hoped?  What if you log onto MyDrury to find you now have a D or– god forbid!– an F in the class.  Now that stressful hell you just survived is reborn.  So how do you fix that grade?

Well, there are lots of ways to go about it.  Dr. Valerie Eastman, a psychology professor at Drury, had several suggestions.

In addition to the writing center, many courses offer tutoring.  If you search on drury.edu, you can find a list of courses with free tutoring offered at Drury.  The link to that page is https://www.drury.edu/academic-life-coaching/tutoring.

She suggested looking over your schedule and figuring out “Where can I sneak in some studying here or there I may not have thought of?”  Of course everyone’s extremely busy but there’s usually a way to find more time.

She also had six study strategies to help you study better in the future.

1. Distributed or spaced practice: Distribute studying across multiple sessions rather than massing it in one session.
2. Interleaving: Mix up the content of what you are studying rather than studying just one type of content.
3. Chunking: Group ideas together into meaningful chunks of information.
4. Elaboration: Make meaningful associations with what you are studying.
5. Retrieval practice: Practice recalling and using information.
6. Overlearning: Keep studying well after it feels like the material is mastered.

Finally, she offered a video series at samford.edu/how-to-study which offers five videos discussing how to learn more effectively and score higher in the future.  The fifth video is titled “I Blew the Exam, Now What?” and may be helpful for improving your score before the end of the semester.

But according to The Prospect, one of the best ways to improve your grades is by talking to your professor.  This may seem obvious, but Eastman explained that many students either do not know (or are too embarrassed or afraid) to go talk to their professors.  She encourages you to take advantage of the time they offer.  “[Office hours] are for coming in and asking questions or going over information that is confusing to [the student].”

Eastman continued, discussing the importance of informing the professor of your struggles.

“I would say the more information the person has the better angle they have to help.  If you just say ‘I’m doing poorly in this class, what can I do about it?’ they may not be as helpful.”

This can be about the specifics of what’s confusing you, or the difficulties of scheduling your day.

She also advises you not to let fear get the best of you.

“Anytime we’re evaluated it’s hard.  It can be painful.  But at a place like Drury, that’s what we’re here for.  You’re here to learn and maybe admitting the ways you’re struggling may help you.”

And, of course, don’t stress too much over it if you can help it.  It’s always good to be concerned with your grades, but don’t let it kill you.  Your worth is not tied up in how well you do in school.  So take a deep breath, relax, and then start planning to do your best work for the rest of the semester.

Article written by Jacob Maher