How bad is a C grade in college?

Solution
Well what's done is done....

However; consider meeting with your advisor and talking about the situation.

Do not know what year you are in nor the pre-requisites for the composition class.

May have been a mismatch in taking a class that you were simply not ready to take.

And for composition the topics are immaterial. How well you can write is what counts. Or should count. Ignore the topic per se. Does make it more difficult when writing about things we do not know or are not interested in. Yet that will happen in most career settings.

As for timed, under-pressure writing - would not expect that unless you are in some sort of journalism program and may truly need to write to hard deadlines. Especially to keep your job.

Meet...
Considering grade inflation? Look at the chart, it's bottom 15% nowadays when the top 45% gets an A.
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SumTingW0ng

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I withdrew my college English Composition 1 yesterday because I got a D in the middle of the semester. The reason that I withdrew from the class is these timed writing assignments are killing my grade at the moment. I don't slack off or refused to pay attention, but just not enough time and time gone so fast by just planning out what I want to write. My professor doesn't tell us what's the topic title we are going to write about until the class begin. It is random topics have nothing to do with the course. We only get 1 hour to finish the essay to turn it in. Plus, I am not very good with these timed writing assignments. I'm a slow thinker, so please don't attack me because I am a slow thinker because not everyone is a fast thinker.
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Well what's done is done....

However; consider meeting with your advisor and talking about the situation.

Do not know what year you are in nor the pre-requisites for the composition class.

May have been a mismatch in taking a class that you were simply not ready to take.

And for composition the topics are immaterial. How well you can write is what counts. Or should count. Ignore the topic per se. Does make it more difficult when writing about things we do not know or are not interested in. Yet that will happen in most career settings.

As for timed, under-pressure writing - would not expect that unless you are in some sort of journalism program and may truly need to write to hard deadlines. Especially to keep your job.

Meet with your advisor and see if you can retake the class. And take the class with different instructor if at all possible.

As for grades they are important but most potential employers understand grade inflation. If you take a Physics class and get a "B" or "C" that probably is much better than some generic science class where everyone gets an "A".

Been debated and discussed for years.....
 
Solution
Consider taking that one class at a community college instead of a university. The classes are far smaller so you will receive more individual attention, and they are much less likely to be entirely graded on timed tests. Furthermore, it's the professor who will be doing the grading instead of an army of T/As (who are graduate students).

Most public universities only allow you to sign up for a class twice, so this is the only option left if you fail twice. But two incompletes on your transcript looks pretty bad (probably much worse than a C) so you want to avoid that if at all possible. As it is, you will have to explain your one incomplete already to any program you apply for.

I can BS pretty well so got through such classes by having pre-prepared essays that turned out to only be tangentially related to the random subject assigned, but were close enough to pass muster and could be written quickly (they don't actually read the content all that thoroughly). One of the critical things you are supposed to learn at university is how to game the system.
 

SumTingW0ng

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Aug 6, 2017
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I can retake it with a different instructor for Summer 2018 term. These timed writing assignments counted as a grade. I don't remember I did this bad because I did take prep English class before taking English Comp 1 at my community college. My prep English doesn't do any of these timed writing at all. We did a couple small to medium essays, but not these timed writing pressure. The withdrew class will appear on my transcript with a " W " in grade for attempted in the course and withdrew.