We know what you’re thinking: “Another semester of classes? Didn’t you already do your capstone?”

Yes, yes he did. Unfortunately, despite passing the capstone, the creator of 131 Off-Road isn’t smart enough to get his master’s yet.

We already gave context to his studies in our initial post, and this is a follow-up. Long story short, he was able to get a passing grade on the capstone. While that was a success, he hasn’t actually met the graduation requirements yet due to Arizona State’s GPA format.

For those who don’t know, ASU has three different GPAs that grad students must get over 3.0 apiece in order to graduate. The first is Cumulative GPA, which includes every course taken since enrollment regardless of whether they’re graduate or undergrad. iPOS GPA counts classes that are listed on a student’s Interactive Plan of Study, which is basically a roadmap listing courses that you plan to take across each semester.

The third is Overall Graduate GPA for graduate-level classes, which in ASU’s case are numbered 500 and above. For example, the capstone course is WWS 597.

The last one is the culprit here. While Justin has the other two GPAs squared away, he is just baaaaarrely underneath the 3.0 requirement for Overall Graduate GPA at… 2.933.

Is he annoyed? Very. It’s not like he can ask for a waiver since he’s only below the mark due to his own stupidity, and having to take another course to get over that hump is simply sowing what he has reaped. If he bombs this semester, he’ll be stuck even longer.

So… yeah. He needs to pass this one final course—Readings in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (WWS 570), for those wondering—if he wants to walk the stage in Tempe during the next commencement ceremony in December. While he technically has another chance during the Fall B semester later in the autumn, he’d obviously like to get it out of the way here so he can focus on his usual work here.

The rules for this semester won’t be much different from Capstone Semi-Hiatus History Month: expect news coverage to be reduced somewhat as he prioritizes academics, while stories he does write about will more often than not have a history slant to keep him in the proper mindset.

Major races in September and early October will still get their usual treatment like the Baja 400 and Rallye du Maroc. Crandon is borderline as are any bajas.

There are also some feature stories being cooked up prior to the semester starting on Thursday that Justin hopes to get live. Fortunately, these are also related to racing history so they still fit the theme.

To quote the closing sentence in our capstone announcement: Simple enough, right? Let’s pray this idiot can keep his head in the game…

Featured image credit: Mills Motorsports