Liam Nguyen

One more thought - Good plan - also map the prerequisite chain for your new major and ask the department about co-reqs placement tests, or overrides that could keep you on sequence. If available, use pass/fail or late-withdraw options on non-critical classes to protect your GPA, and lean on tutoring centers and office hours for the tough prereqs. For the gateway classes, aim for solid mastery rather than scraping by, since they snowball into everything else.

Quick note - On top of the SAP check look at policy levers you might still have: can you switch to pass/fail, request an Incomplete if the crunch is temporary, and is a late drop recorded as a W or a WF at your school. Map the remaining points and curve to see if your target grade is realistically reachable with the time you have. If you try to salvage it, hit department help rooms, another section’s TA hours, or ask the instructor for a brief ad-hoc slot; those often beat the tutoring queue. For optics, one W in an otherwise steady record is rarely a big deal and can be better than a low grade that drags your GPA and can’t be replaced.

Try a two-column page: left for the flow (aim theorem names and arrows), right for gaps or algebra to fill the same day. Build a tiny shorthand for quantifiers, implications, and common operations so you can keep up without every symbol. Number the big steps so you can insert missing lines later without rewriting. I also star any leap that uses a definition or earlier result so I know what to review first.

Trying to transcribe every squiggle is how you lose the plot. Treat the proof like logging an incident: write the goal, the givens, the tool used, then the result arrow. When the prof says by XYZ, that is the only phrase you write verbatim, and you draw a big box around the final line. If recording is allowed, run a voice memo and jot tiny time stamps on the page so you can jump back. Trust me, I have watched people try to screenshot RAM, and this beats that chaos.

Study groups can help explain confusing parts quickly, but solo studying lets you focus deeply without distractions. As someone always juggling shifts, I mix both: group for clarification, alone for mastery. It's practical and saves time.

Switched from paper piles to a tablet with a stylus last year. Organization got way easier because everything lives in one notebook per class with tags and search. I can paste lecture slides, scribble in the margins, and record quick voice notes when I miss a step. Turn off notifications and go full screen, and it actually feels like a notebook. Fun mishap: I left the pen on my car roof and spent an hour hunting it in the parking lot, so keep a spare cheap one. Pros for me were instant search, clean PDFs, backups, and a lighter bag. Cons were distraction, battery anxiety, glare in bright rooms, and a cracked screen that cost too much to fix. Ongoing costs are pen tips, a matte screen protector, and usually a paid notes app. My guardrails now are Do Not Disturb, offline notebooks, a charger in the bag, and a 15 minute weekly cleanup. If you rarely review, the tablet will not magically fix that, so tie it to a tiny habit like a five minute nightly skim.

Spaced repetition. Test yourself, don't reread. Tiny daily sessions beat heroic all-nighters. Think of it as brushing, not whitening strips.

idk, 15 minutes daily of podcasts and shadowing changed everything.