Joan Baker 🥉

One practical tie-breaker: estimate the time you’d free by withdrawing and how much that could bump your other grades; a W that turns two Bs into As is often a net win on GPA and stress. Also verify two policies before deciding: does your school do grade forgiveness (repeat-to-replace vs average) and how does a W count toward SAP pace/maximum timeframe for aid because that can make a low grade you plan to retake safer than it looks - or not but then... if you do drop and line up the retake early (summer or a mini-mester) and jot a one-sentence rationale now so you can explain a single W cleanly later.

I wouldn’t cut sleep - exhaustion will hurt your grades more than it helps your hours which, yeah meet your advisor now to map the prereq sequence then drop or defer anything that doesn’t unlock next term, and use withdrawal or pass/no credit options before deadlines to protect your GPA. Prioritize the smallest set of courses that advances you, lean hard on office hours/tutoring, and, if possible, trim work hours for a few weeks rather than stretching yourself thin.

Co-sign the SAP and transfer-plan advice. Two adds: a single W almost never hurts future applications if you later earn the A whereas a C/D lingers and can risk your scholarship GPA. Check whether pass/fail and an Incomplete, or a late-withdraw option exists and whether your aid counts those as completed credits. Also confirm knock-on effects (housing or insurance full-time thresholds, loan disbursement), and ask the department about any SI or peer study you can join now so your points audit reflects your best case.

Nice adds. One more tweak: aim for effortful-but-successful recall (around 70–85% correct) and adjust the spacing accordingly rather than rigidly sticking to 1–3–7–14. Also keep prompts lean and answer in your own words with a quick concrete example or teach-back and and vary context a bit (different spot or time of day) so your cues don’t get too narrow.

It’s not automatically a big delay if your gen-eds and some electives can be repurposed. Ask both departments for a what-if degree audit then petition course substitutions with syllabi so prior classes count, and map a term-by-term plan. You can often soften the timing hit with summer/winter sessions or a slightly heavier load, and worst case finish a semester late.

Departments reward box-checking and not heroics. Drop or withdraw from anything that will ding the GPA, take the minimum gateway this term, then pad with easy A gen eds or summer sessions. Talk to the advisor only to document the plan, not to ask permission, and protect your transcript first.

One more thought - Love this workflow. I’d stretch your review intervals to 1, 3, 7 and 14 days and interleave old sections with new ones so you’re not blocking by chapter. Turn each blurt into 2–3 question prompts and answer them cold before you let yourself peek. If a topic keeps slipping and make a one-page from-memory summary, then check and correct it in a different color.

A W is fine once. A bad grade can kneecap GPA and risk the scholarship. Delaying graduation costs tuition and lost time, so pick the smaller hit. If you cannot hit the target grade on paper, cut the cord.

Seconding the benefits but it only stuck for me once I made it a dumb notebook: separate user profile with the notes app and Wi‑Fi off in class, grayscale, and a simple naming scheme like YYYY‑MM‑DD Topic so review takes minutes. A matte screen film helped with glare and made writing feel closer to paper. To keep costs sane, I went refurb last‑gen with a third‑party pen and keep a small power bank in my bag to kill battery anxiety.

Oh sure and because nothing says 'great idea' like throwing away two years of your life on a major you hate, right? I've seen guys in IT pull this stunt all the time, thinking they're hotshots until the credit transfers hit like a brick wall. You end up begging advisors for mercy, and half your classes don't count, so you're stuck retaking basics while your friends graduate and get real jobs. Picture this: one dude I knew switched from comp sci to business in junior year, figured it'd be easy. Nope, lost a ton of tech credits, had to overload semesters, and graduated a year late with a mountain of debt. Moral? Talk to an advisor yesterday, map out every single credit, or prepare to eat ramen for an extra semester. And don't get me started on the timing – if you're not careful, you'll miss prerequisites and drag it out even longer. Yeah, it's doable, but it's a pain. Weigh if that new major is worth the hassle, or if you're just burnt out on the old one.

Hey Cooper, i switched from paper notes to an iPad about two years ago for my college classes & and overall, it was a game-changer for me. My paper notes were always a mess too, scattered everywhere, but with the tablet, I use the GoodNotes app to organize everything into digital notebooks by subject. Searching for specific terms is super easy, like when I needed to find my notes on quantum mechanics last semester, I just typed it in and bam, there it was. Reviewing became something I actually do now because I can annotate PDFs of textbooks right on the device, which made studying for exams way less painful. The handwriting feels natural with the Apple Pencil, and I don't lose pages anymore. That said, distractions are real, especially if you don't turn off notifications. I got sidetracked a few times by Reddit alerts during lectures, so I had to set it to Do Not Disturb mode every class. Cost-wise, it wasn't cheap. I spent around $800 on the iPad and accessories, but it replaced buying notebooks and printers over time. Charging is another hassle, I forgot to plug it in once and had to borrow a friend's notebook mid-lecture, which was embarrassing. In your case, since you rarely review notes, the tablet might motivate you to organize and revisit them more, but if chaos isn't bothering you much, it could just be an unnecessary gadget. I think it's worth it if you're willing to tweak settings to minimize distractions. For me, the pros outweigh the cons, especially for long-term use.

The biggest shift is to stop rereading and start retrieving. Before you read, scan the headings, bold terms, figures, and any learning objectives, then turn those into questions you want to answer. Read a section with those questions in mind, close the book, and explain the key ideas out loud or on paper as if teaching a friend. Do a quick blurt at the end of the chapter where you write everything you remember for five to ten minutes, then check the book and fill the gaps in a different color. Lock it in with spaced repetition. Make short flashcards right after you study using cloze deletions and clear Q and A that force you to recall, not recognize. In Anki, use one deck per course, tag cards by chapter, keep each card to one fact or step, and use learning steps like 10 minutes, 1 day, and 3 days with daily reviews. For diagrams and processes, make cards that prompt you to draw or list steps from memory, then check against the book. Mix in questions from older chapters so you interleave topics instead of cramming one block. Keep the rest light and consistent. At the end of each subsection, write a one sentence gist in the margin and sketch a tiny diagram if it helps. Only highlight after a recall pass and cap it to one line per page so you are choosing the core idea. The next morning, do a five minute closed book recall of the chapter, then a longer check on the weekend, and if a chapter is dense, split it over two or three days with a quick test between chunks.

Two classes max, same nights, automate bills, Sunday reset, done.