Confused about my college career PT.2 (The update)

Transfer Students
1

Hello everyone, I’m writing this about a month from my last post this is a long post but I don’t have many people to talk to about this major decision, since my last post a lot has changed but let’s get right to it I don’t want to lag on if so reading my last post can help catch you up with everything I’m posting here.

about a couple of weeks ago or whenever I made my last post, I had applied to transfer to a different school(YAY!) I was getting tired of my previous school and was looking for a change of scenery I had also got denied from the school of physics from my main school, on top of that my gpa was trashed (2.0) and I had only completed 44 credits with 1 more credit point till I had to declare a major that I didn’t even want. Things were looking pretty bad for me so I started planning to transfer.

I was looking at 2 different universities both were out of state and public schools but both fit the molds of what I wanted to do post college in aerospace, I only had enough money to apply to one of them. And because one of the schools was in my dream location I had applied there(AND I GOT IN!!!). I had got into the physics program and the program is pretty nice it is in the DMV where everything Nasa pretty much is. But in life everything that seems good is not as good I listed out some pros and cons as I need help with my decision.

Out of state college:
+Accepted into my major
+Fresh new start
+Programs more aimed to what I want to major in
+In a area where all the major companies in my craft are.
+Ability to test into my needed classes to still graduate in the next 2 years
-Is extremely expensive (24k or 40k)
-Is a public out of state school, is going to be similar to my old school as majority of people going there are from the state (feeling like a outcast)
-Still isn’t my preferred location but is still close to it.

In state college :
+Is still in my state, cheaper and not to far away from home
+people here are from my state(not feeling like a outcast)
+If everything works out perfect (which I doubt) I can spend one more year at the school then try and transfer to my dream school but there’s no promise especially as a junior. And at that point I might just have to stay till graduate school.
+Retake intro classes for gpa boost???
-I messed up terribly, low gpa and credits might have to 5+ years
-Does not have the same major opportunity’s like the MD college
-Rejected from major

Thank you if you did read my long essay, just needed some feedback before I make an important decision. There still is time to back out but I just needed some help especially since there isn’t many other people I can talk to about this issue.

2

Sorry for any spelling errors I’m writing this at 5AM.

3

I just read your previous post as well as this one. A few questions jump to mind:

  1. What’s your budg…

Oh, forget it. I’ll be the @sshole. What really jumps to mind, as the spouse of an electrical engineer, is that you are not academically ready for an engineering program. You haven’t taken and done well in college-level STEM classes - heck, you haven’t even done well in easy college classes - so there’s no reason to believe that you’ll survive a full engineering program. Even if your family can afford to pay the $24K-$40K tuition and fees without taking out loans, I think it’s going to be a complete waste of money.

As someone said in your previous post, it sounds like you have ADD/executive functioning issues for which you need help. Based on this current post, it sounds like you completely ignored that advice. Procrastination, not realizing you missed a whole set of assignments, thinking you can just get by doing what got you sh!tty grades in HS and your current college - none of that is going to be fixed by going to an engineering program in an OOS school. In fact, the harder classes are going to exacerbate those problems and you’re likely to slide from the B-D range to the D-F range and flunk out. If you take out loans, you could end up with a lot of debt and no degree (and thus no job to pay off those loans). Also, it’s going to be hard to get an internship, even with all the big companies in the DMV/DC area, with such bad grades, because there are enough kids here with good grades already competing for those internships. (I live in MD, between DC and Baltimore.)

The fact that you got accepted to an engineering program doesn’t mean you’re qualified to be there, unfortunately. If a school has more spots than applicants, they may very well accept some students they know aren’t qualified and are likely to drop out after a year - but someone paying tuition for that year is better than not having someone paying. Think of it like a movie theater - they are going to have to pay for the building, the employees, the fee for showing the movie - regardless of whether 10 people buy tickets or 100 people buy tickets. They make more money if 100 people buy tickets of course, so they will sell tickets to anyone if they have open seats. If their theater is almost empty and they need money, whether you will enjoy the movie enough to watch the whole thing becomes far less important to them than making money to keep their doors open. If you walk out halfway through the movie because you didn’t like it, that’s not their problem; they have your money. Think of easy-to-get-into engineering programs like this movie theater - while they hope everyone does well and they want you to graduate, at the end of the day they really need to have students paying tuition and will take anyone who applies, even they aren’t qualified or likely to survive the program, just to get the tuition money.

Maybe in the future you’ll be ready for engineering, but right now you need to develop good time-management, organization, and study skills and then apply those for a year to build a better academic track record. I don’t know if that’s even possible given that you’re already a junior this fall, but that’s what I’d suggest if you can figure out a way to do it without paying a lot. Perhaps you can still take some classes at a CC even though you’re technically a junior. Good luck.

4

Thanks for the honesty, I have reading up on ADHD symptoms/watched videos and I can say that I have it even though I’m not diagnosed with it from a doctor. It’s no wonder why I struggled a lot in school even though I thought concepts like math interested me I couldn’t stay focused for more than about 5 minutes for the subject or basically procrastinate and push off any type of studying and winging tests, that’s something I’m aware of now but honestly I have no clue where to go from here I regards to this. I come from a family where it may be acceptable to acknowledge that you have something like ADHD but getting medication is though of some sort of taboo better study habits are indeed needed, I was doing great in summer school until I withdrew from all 4 of my classes following getting accepted from the other college and my grades were pretty much all A’s with 1B in geo and up for subjects in math,cs,English,geology I did better with preparation and studying even though they were basic level courses none of which really helped with my degree except English.

As far as getting accepted to the other college I did it with complete understanding that my out of state tuition would be a driving factor in the decision, my extracurricular are alright,my grades are trashed but hey 40k looks way better than an instate 24k I even referenced this in my last post that most of the people at my main institution would attend college for a year rack up debt then dropout, I did read the feedback and I looked at CC’s within my area but it wouldn’t make sense to go there when my main institution is dirt cheap as it is. Going to CC for 2-3K less wouldn’t make any big difference than going to a major Uni, you could say that going to CC can help develop any skills that I need to thrive in school, but I can get that and more resources at my main institution for only a little bit more.

I may be missing some more things to respond to I don’t use this website much but if anything I do appreciate the honesty. I still have 2 more years and some more classes and OOS tuition gave me a clear reality check that I probably had it way better than I truly thought.

5

I agree with this post and just want to add that student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. They’ll be with your forever until repaid so add on to your woes (should you drop out with debt) trying to buy a car or rent an apartment with ruined credit, or trying to find a job when your wages are garnished.

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6

My question, why apply to only 2 schools? One is unaffordable, and the other one rejected you for the major you wanted. Neither one are good options.

I have ADHD. The one thing you DON’T want to do is rush into something because you got accepted. All you’re going to do is set yourself up for a crash that could ruin your future. I speak from experience from my younger, more impulsive years :slight_smile: You need to ease into college. You need to get on meds, go to community college, and start with 2-3 classes, then work your way up to more. If you can get good grades there, it will increase your affordable options for the major you want.

The trick is to work “with” ADHD, not “against” it. It’s not uncommon to have to study twice as hard as your peers. Not because of “dumb,” you’re far from it, it’s because it’s difficult to stay on task reading and memorizing. I could read an entire chapter, and not remember a word of it 2 minutes later. I would have to go back and read the same chapter later to “get it.” Medication helps, but only works for 8 hours. Your doctor can prescribe a small dose to use at night if you have to study.

The greatest virtue of ADHD is that we tend to excel at coding programming languages. It’s because programming is all hands on trial and error, and people with ADHD aren’t afraid to make mistakes. In coding, the more mistakes you make, the more you can catch and correct.