<p>who transfered to UC?</p>
<p>I can't be the only one.</p>
<p>Any high school dropouts? or transferred at 18 or younger?</p>
<p>I wasn’t a dropout, but being placed in the county child services system at 14 and bouncing from placement to placement after that meant no formal education beyond 8th grade. Got GED, went to CCC and now at Berkeley. What’s your story?</p>
<p>Similar story to Keely except i turned down Berkeley for UCSD since i got a job at a nuclear pharmacy in the area.</p>
<p>I dropped out of high school after tenth grade. Passed the CHSPE, spent four years in community college because I couldn’t decide on a major, and am starting at UCSD this fall.</p>
<p>I’m liking this. I’m feeling some sense of community. </p>
<p>If anybody doesn’t mind, do you feel like you missed out, or you’re superior, or what’s your reflection in general. Usually it’s not happy reasons things like this happen. How different do you think you’d be if you came from a stable nuclear family and went the customary route?</p>
<p>I dropped out at the beginning of 8th grade because of an illness at close to 14. The public school system didn’t give a damn about me which was nice because the social workers never bothered me to get educated. I found out about the CHSPE about a month before turning 16, luckily by then I could walk and was showing signs of remission. Passed with flying colors-proving it’s a joke-the whole system. Had a minor setback and then enrolled at CC. At 18, I have decided on UCI’s CHP for psychology and neurobiology with a minor in medical anthropology. Plan on medical school for pediatric oncology. Health-wise I’m still ham-handed–unstable but I’m functioning. </p>
<p>I’m conscience about moving from NoCal to SoCal. Any advice? First time on your own? Socialization? I’ll be completely alone down there. It’s weird thinking I’m a junior in college when I lack that history most people share.</p>
<p>I’m proud though.</p>
<p>High school drop out. Don’t have GED. (Don’t need one to transfer.) Went to CCC. Got into UCSD and UCD. Transferred to UCD last year and now senior taking Psychology and Neurobiology, Physiology, & Behavior.</p>
<p>It certainly wasn’t for happy reasons that I took this route, and at times my friends have to remind me that I should take pride in my accomplishments and how I got to where I am. I know I definitely missed out on a lot of typical experiences that the average college student goes through, but I think it has given me a different perspective to education and success.</p>
<p>It’s good seeing these positive turnarounds. Can I ask what motivated it?</p>
<p>To all those who went to hs-excluding social development- was it really useful? I mean I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed and with a 7th grade education I did fairly well in cc. I don’t intend to bash, I really question the system.</p>
<p>I didn’t drop out but I sincerely remember nothing from HS. I’ve retaken classes at my CC (I have ~120 SEMESTER units from Hist to Science to Humanities classes) and basically felt like I was learning things for the first time. A name or aspect might have sounded familiar, but I had no idea what it meant. </p>
<p>Then again, I was the type of student that would never come to school, often skip out after attendance, and just show up for tests. I was able to still maintain As and get a 1440 on my SATs (when they were still out of 1600). In my case, I think HS was more about enhancing the capacity for learning. You sit around all day, memorize a limited amount of information in a variety of broad subjects, and learn how to test well. Does that still help you in college? Probably. Will being a HS student that actually focuses and LEARNS the material help you more in college? Definitely. With dedication, can you achieve that on your own without attending HS? Also probably.</p>
<p>HS Pros:</p>
<p>I would have to say that HS helps with subjects that are comprehensive (Ex. Math) since you are utilizing and building on it every year and then taking it again in college (or in my case, 2 more years of math in college). Extreme exposure = unconscious learning.</p>
<p>I’m not going to say I’m a smooth talker but HS taught me how to deal with my teachers/professors really well and I am always a student that they tend to “like”. I feel like at this point, after having taken so many classes, I’ve learned to read teachers and understand how to help them out and ask questions that will bring a boring lecture back to life or how to approach them about grades and interact outside of the classroom. Additionally, I know how to get the MOST out of my lectures and can pull out vital information from even the most unorganized professors. I think that type of academic exposure is something that GED/home-schooled students sometimes lack when they first start college. However, as transfers, that is something that you can easily learn at a CC versus when some students go straight to a university and don’t know how to do this or even utilize various resources on campus.</p>
<p>I was motivated to keep pursuing my education because I love to learn and play with ideas. I’m interested in how the brain/mind work together and am considering something along the lines of medicine or teaching.</p>
<p>Advice on NorCal/SoCal. I would consider the environment where you are most comfortable. A lot of the people in my apartment are from SoCal and they have different attitudes and are often comparing NorCal and SoCal. Take tours of the schools you are considering and take note of the social dynamic and if you feel comfortable around the kinds of people you meet. For me, I’m from Sacramento, and the large majority of friends I made at CC were transferring to Davis or are in the area. A support network was a big factor for me, so I feel I made a good choice with Davis, but you may have different priorities.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. I knew someone at my CC who flunked out of Berkeley and they’re response was equal-really almost completely. They also didn’t give themselves to hs and did well-ultimately turning themselves back on a meaningful track.
Most of my cc professors hated or were entertained by me. They had respect though.
Do you personally know a lot of GED/home-schooled students? I find them hard to come by. In fact, I’ve never met anybody who was home-schooled. My small world. </p>
<p>Also thanks. It kind of sucks because I don’t have the money to visit colleges and I only applied to places I had a fee-waiver for–4 UC’s and 4 CSU’s–I have never been to any other colleges besides my cc and Stanford(i do cogsci research there) because they’re both in walking distance. It’s hard finding people I get along with. I’m super conservative in my own right, but look like a hippy, really into psychonautics but have never or ever abused drugs.</p>
<p>I was sooo devastated to have to get my GED for years. I felt like it caused people to automatically discount my intelligence when really that wasn’t the case. I didn’t get the socialization or basic education from high school, and it’s frustrating sometimes trying to be educated from the top down; by this I mean taking upper division courses when I have never had a history class, a government or civics class, chemistry or physics, etc. I’m an English major studying upper division literature when I’ve never read Hamlet or Catcher in the Rye, no Mark Twain, no John Steinbeck. I think people take what they learned for granted sometimes in light of all the things I can think of that I never did learn. </p>
<pre><code> But it’s ok now. I’m confident, I’m a great student, no one cares about GED or lack of any standardized test scores. I’m planning on really making the most of my time at Berkeley so I’ll be primed for a PhD program at an Ivy (hopefully). Thanks for sharing, everybody. And as for NorCal/SoCal, I moved to Berkeley about 6 weeks ago from San Diego and have had about 1 week of class. Granted it’s not a long time, but I haven’t noticed a single difference besides the taco shop to cafe ratio.
</code></pre>
<p>I haven’t met anybody at university who has told me they got a GED, but I’m sure there are people around who have… there must be!</p>
<p>Well the main difference between NorCal and SoCal is that in NorCal we say “hella” as an intensifier. Also, people from SoCal complain about the weather a lot (when they are in NorCal).</p>
<p>I can relate to the top down thing.
I know! There must be some other junior high dropout out there too. Someday.
It’s cool we’re both double majoring in the same thing for the superficially same reasons. </p>
<p>So, I should brace myself for maximum taco shop scenery and a reduction in aural reception of hella.
Come on, you can do better than that.</p>
<p>just goes to show how useless hs is.</p>
<p>Haha honestly I can’t think of that many differences between SoCal and NorCal. I did notice upon moving to Berkeley that people - how can I put this lightly - put less of an emphasis on how they look…Conversely, you might get to Irvine and find that people around there seem more self-absorbed and style-conscious. Oh, and be prepared to endure a much more frustrating transportation system. Things are spread farther apart and being without a car is highly inconvenient to impossibe. But overall, especially on campus, I’m sure it will be easy to make friends, particularly in classes specialized for your major. I’m planning to join a few clubs too just for some extra socialization and grad school app boost. You sound like a confident guy and besides, people like us have cleared way higher hurdles in life thus far.</p>
<p>There’s no shame in dropping out of junior high/high school and eventually obtaining a degree. Public secondary schools are becoming the real the shame.</p>
<p>Thank you-that had substance. I never really thought about it. And I appreciate you putting it lightly- not used to that. I never give appearance high priority internally or externally. I wear “genuine rags”-I’ve never worn a suit in my life. Also my walking distance is about 10 miles one-way comfortably, so I should be good i hope.</p>
<p>Thanks again to everybody who raised their hands. It helped. </p>
<p>I agree Miss(ter) Giraffe. I can’t imagine what I would have been like if I went.</p>
<p>Blam, maybe someone in relation will see this now.</p>
<p>C’mon brethren.</p>
<p>I didn’t realize how common this was, I dropped out of the 6th grade and got my GED at 16 then went to a CC.</p>