[blaisem]

Hello, I was hoping someone who is a professor or has experience with graduate applications might be able to advise me on my situation. Today I found out I will not be able to complete my graduate program. I am extremely worried that no school will take me anymore. This is a bit long, but I'd like to give some background, as is this essentially the course of events that would be laid out on a transcript/application from me.

• My undergraduate tenure I ended with a 3.7 GPA at a decent state university. I completed and presented a voluntary thesis in my senior year as part of a year-long research project. I assisted in research before that, and I tutored chemistry at the university library to stay up on my basic skills. I felt pretty on top of things as a student.
• Feeling motivated after undergraduate school, I applied for graduate school abroad. I had had a great exchange experience before starting my undergraduate program, so I believed myself adequately proficient in the language, and I wanted to relieve the cultural spice again.

• My first year was a disaster. I completed maybe 50% of what I set out to do. The lectures were hard to follow with technical vocabulary and speech patterns; even language aside, the system was very different in how lectures were organized. The students had their own network from their time as bachelor students and had access to old exams and answer sheets that I didn't even figure out existed until much later. In hindsight, worst of all, I didn't realize why I wasn't succeeding, assuming it was just the learning curve of being abroad, rather than proactively seizing the initiative to give myself a larger margin of error for unexpected issues.
• My second year I cram pack my schedule to try and make up lost ground. I end up overwhelmed and largely unsuccessful.  I'm starting to really question myself as a student. After my second year, I approach my advisor for options. He tells me to take a more reasonable load. He explains I have no time limit, that a student, even foreign, can stay as long as they want if they need a slower pace. Unfortunately, I was too dumb to consider crosschecking this with my visa offer. I suppose I had the naive assumption Americans weren't deported as long as they had reason to be there.
• My third year I wasn't sure I wanted to continue. I passed a mandatory exam, the most difficult one in the course regimen, and then took the second semester off to attend major family events, having not been home in 2 years. While not traveling, I still visited lectures and worked on a school paper as part of the program degree. I thought I was recharging after feeling burnt out, but I now feel this was possibly my biggest mistake to slow down and take a relaxed approach. I needed to be sprinting through the stress. I was mostly finished with coursework at this point, but I still had the bulk of mandatory lab programs to complete.
• My fourth year I returned ready with a more balanced plan and a lab position already lined up. However, my visa officer informs me by my renewal that I am not allowed to renew, but after prodding from the school he relents and gives me 1 year to finish, with a check up in the middle. I also discover that some of the lab work from the second year needs to be repeated because it involved research that was no longer useful, and I hadn't properly concluded it with a presentation. Wanting above all to avoid the situation I am in as of writing this post, I basically repeat my second year, go for the long shot and try to make it work. 6 months in, I have not covered ground fast enough, and the visa is not approved for renewal to finish the program. I thought maybe I could negotiate an extra month or two, but visa officer already felt generous giving me the 6 months in the first place, so no extension.

My situation looks really bad to me. I basically have nothing to show for my last 4 years on a resume but the knowledge from coursework in my head and some experience in the lab. Formal metrics, like published papers, good grades, or even a respectable amount of credit points (in my program courses are valued at 33% of the lab work), I lack entirely. Now I'm in a position with a gravity I could never have anticipated before starting graduate school. I am wondering if I am basically blocked from any graduate school accepting me, home or abroad. I also worry I cannot get a job. I am pretty desperate. This is not where I want to be, and I regret how I handled things, especially how lackadaisical I was in my 3rd year, and not respecting how damaging it would be to fall behind in my first year. I still believe I can perform well if I am not in a situation where I'm trying to manage my current objective and catch up on a past objective simultaneously, and I've learned a lot just struggling along about how I work and what I need to watch out for. I'm just afraid there won't be a second chance, and that I screwed myself forever.

Does anyone with experience have an opinion on what prospects may still be open to me, if any? Thank you for your time.

[MOTOBALL]

Do NOT give up on yourself !!!

What you already have is,
1. A decent BS degree with GPA 3.7
2. Decent undergrad school
3. Very good English writing (& speaking) skills
4. You are US citizen

Build on what you have,
1. Stay in the US
2. Set your sights at a reasonable level (no MIT, Stanford); aim at, for example, Penn State, Ohio State, Arizona S, or slightly lower selectivity
3. Go to where you are accepted, that will also allow you to get home easily.
4. On your application, list what you DID achieve and emphasize that you took a leap into the unknown----which is exactly what chemical research is !

I spent a very miserable & unproductive year as a post-doc in France, so I can well understand your experience.

Please give us an update when the dust has settled----I expect to read  on this board sometime that you are enjoying the hell out of grad school.

Very good luck !

[Corribus]

I don't think you will have too much trouble finding a spot in a decent US graduate school. Assuming of course that's what you want to do. You may expect to have to repeat some coursework, though. More or less, I'd be prepared essentially to be starting over, although that may be open to some negotiation once you are accepted somewhere.

[Irlanur]

Can I ask what "abroad" means?

I also think that your situation is not as disastrous as you see it at the moment. 'On paper' you may have not achieved too much. But who wants to work with people that want you to be good on paper? Maybe you can't go anywhere you want, but I am sure that you will find a decent university in the US or somewhere else (although I could perfectly understand that you would want to go back to the US ).