Coming to college from high school is not an easy transition. You go from living at home, having very little responsibilities, and not having to take care of yourself to being on your own and having to manage yourself. There is also the added temptation of the social side of college.

If you do a poor job of balancing the two, before you know it mid-terms come around and you have a number of F’s and D’s. Many students go through this. The good news is that you can still get out of the massive hole that you dug for yourself. It takes a lot of discipline and work, but you can still make the best of the situation.

The first step to your recovery plan is to make sure you go to every class. Skipping class is not only a waste of money, it is just plain stupid. You are paying money to go to college, and if you’re not going to go to class you should save your money and drop out.

You need to be an active note taker. The tests and quizzes are usually based on examples you do in class. Also if any homework is assigned, you need to do that. The more time you work on a topic, the better you will become on that topic.

Part of figuring out what you need to do to get your grades up involves taking a look at what your grade is currently and figuring out what a reasonable grade you can get by the end of the semester. Take a look at your syllabus and figure out the point system for that class. You can then calculate exactly what you need to get on every assignment, every test, and every quiz to get the grade you think you can get. If you have an iPhone, the Grades 2 app can help you do this calculation. The topic: Understanding the Syllabus can help you use the syllabus to calculate your grade.

The hardest part is changing your ways from whatever it was that you did to dig yourself into a hole to being disciplined enough to do what it takes to get a good grade. The section: Developing Discipline to Do Well has a number of topics that can help. Going to different help sessions is always beneficial. If you are having trouble in your classes, it is never a bad thing to ask someone for help. There are some easy-take advantages that not only students with bad a mid-term grade use, but is also used by those who have very good grades. The writing center, for example, is really helpful for you if you need help with your papers. All that you have to do is go there with your drafts and they will do the rest. Moreover, most universities provide very good learning centers where you can get some help. You need to understand that people are out there to help, and they love helping students. One of the hardest parts of getting help is asking for it. If you do ask for help, you will start to succeed. See the topic: Asking for Extra Help.

A discipline coach can also be very helpful. This is a person who you can talk to about your grades and who will serve as your conscience for doing well. This could be a parent, a friend, your advisor, or anyone who will look out for your best interests.

Screwing up the first half of the semester is not something to take lightly. It is a steep uphill climb to manage a good grade after you are failing at mid-term. You need to put serious work into your classes and make sure that school comes first before everything else. A bad midterm is not a death sentence however. You do not need to think that you are doomed, and that you blew a year of college. The important thing here in such experience is that you take it as lesson. It might be a good determination of what is expected of you. Be positive about it, however, take it as serious as you can because a bad mid-term is possible to be made up at finals.

Many students get off to a bad first start, and only a few students make the best of it. If you want to be one of the students to end up on academic probation and looking at flunking out of college, keep on doing what you did the first half of the semester. But if you want to get the most out of your money and get good grades, suck it up and start putting in the time to get good grades..