Got a 63 average in second year - not happy with it

I hoped to get a First overall in my degree but chances of that are very slim and difficult now. I'd have to get something like a 73 in each remaining assessment.

I asked my department if there was any way to improve my second year grade and they said there wasn't

How much weight does your second year have compared to your third?

Second year is 1/3 of overall grade, third year 2/3

Final year is worth twice as much as second year

You should be able to work towards bringing up your grade then. Your dissertation will help with this too.

I know I can work towards this but it's just kind of discouraging knowing that my 2nd year grade will make this very hard.

I'm not doing a dissertation - decided to pick regular modules

It's not realistic that I can get 73 or above in all my assessments

I hoped to get a First overall in my degree but chances of that are very slim and difficult now. I'd have to get something like a 73 in each remaining assessment.

I asked my department if there was any way to improve my second year grade and they said there wasn't

I hoped to get a First overall in my degree but chances of that are very slim and difficult now. I'd have to get something like a 73 in each remaining assessment.

I asked my department if there was any way to improve my second year grade and they said there wasn't

Why did you get 63 in your second year? Because you didn't actually work very hard (I don't mean rose coloured glasses type "I should have lived in the library", I mean "actually I did the bare minimum") or because if you are honest with yourself it was a fair reflection of your abilities?

If it's the first one, averaging 73 while working reasonably hard shouldn't be impossible.
If it's the second one, well, not everyone is capable of getting a first, not even if you limit it to people who really, really wanted to get one. (Been there, done that, got a 2:1, wasn't going to get a first no matter how badly I wanted to.) There is no point beating yourself up over it if this is the case.

"What, you can elect not to do a dissertation in your final year?! Good god - what are things coming to!"

I didn't do a dissertation in my final year either. I'm old and went to Oxford, so it's hardly a modern or trendy thing.

What, you can elect not to do a dissertation in your final year?! Good god - what are things coming to!

What's done is done, you can't go back in time.

What you should have done at the time is ask the lecturers for advice on how you could have improved the work you submitted -- so you can learn what you could do better in future pieces of work (and then put that advice into practice).

As has been mentioned, you need to get an average of 73 for your remaining work. You should also look to see what rules your university has around "near misses" -- some universities have rules which apply when your overall average is within 1 or 2 per cent of the classification boundary.

As it is, your second-year average was towards the lower end of the 2:1 range, so you know you need to step up a level. Only you know whether you can achieve that. But that doesn't mean it's not worth trying. If you're looking at going on to further study (or anywhere where people look at your transcript rather than the headline classification), then getting a 2:1 with a higher average (e.g. 68% overall) is going to better than a lower-end 2:1 (e.g. 62%).

I definitely think I can get a 68 overall. But I really want a 73