As a FRCC Foundation Fellow and the Student Government President on the Boulder County Campus, I am a part of many conversations. One in particular that I often hear is about students retaking classes. Not only do students take classes for a second time, but for a third or fourth time even. The most common classes students retake are math, particularly developmental math.
What is the policy at FRCC?
According to the college catalog for this year, any course taken at FRCC can be retaken and, if you took these courses after Fall 2006, the lower grade will not be included in your GPA. You may think that this is a great way to raise your GPA, but that is not the only factor involved in retaking classes.
Retaking a class can affect your financial aid.
Personally, I do not find re-taking courses to be customary and it is not the best way to go about your college career. Even though taking the class again may be better for your GPA, you will have to pay for both of the classes, and sometimes your financial aid will not cover a repeated course.
Repeated classes use up your COF funds.
If you are an in-state student, you receive COF (College Opportunity Fund), basically a discount that is applied to your tuition. The COF can only be used for a limited number of credit hours in your lifetime. The COF discount will be applied to all of of your courses, so you are essentially wasting part of your lifetime eligible credit hours if you decide to re-take classes unnecessarily.
You could be setting yourself up for failure.
The comment I hear most is, “well most people I know in my class are on their third time taking it so I am doing well at my second time, and I will probably have to take this class again.” If you go into a class thinking you will have to take it again, then really you are telling yourself that you do not have to try and that not passing this course is typical. Unfortunately, this mindset is not setting yourself up for success. Wouldn’t it be better just to take a hard class and pass it with a C, and be done with it rather than retake it and affect your financial aid/money, waste your time, and continue to be frustrated?
Commit to pass the first time.
The most successful college students endeavor to take courses only once and commit themselves to attaining a passing grade. My advice would be to register for a class, commit yourself to completing it with a passing grade the first time and continue to move forward on your path towards success!
