<p>Hey all, I've read some stories and feedback from this website that were relevant to the situation that I am in, so I thought I'd make an account to seek out for advice and feedback as well. I don't have many people to talk to about my situation with and I haven't always been honest and consistent about what I've been telling people about my progress in school. I apologize for the long excerpt, but I feel like I can get some better feedback if I let you guys know the details of my story.</p>
<p>A little background on me, I am currently in my 3rd year with a senior standing because I took classes that put me ahead of my graduation schedule. Time is very important to me. I've been doing science and math courses since my high school days and did alright in all of them. I even earned an Engineering Pathway certificate from high school, so I thought that this will be the thing for me. When college came around, I thought I'd get into engineering. Finish undergraduates, go to graduate school, earn a good living etc. etc. First two years of my undergraduates were just general classes that I did okay on some, and not too swell in others. I knew my GPA was taking a beating, but I knew I tried my best at the time. I was doing fine until the near end of my 2nd year.</p>
<p>Last year, I was on track to earn a degree on a four-year course plan. I was until the spring of my sophomore year that I started to fall behind in a couple of my classes due to overwhelming load I was dealing with in and out of campus. It made me very depressed to find out that I did not pass the courses, meaning that I did not earn the sufficient grade that made me eligible to enroll into the College of Engineering. I felt defeated for a long time and started to rationalize and make excuses on things like: my teachers were horrible, the tests were uncurved, etc. But I knew that my work ethic was not so great that term. I got into very bad studying habits and procrastinated on almost everything. That summer was the summer that my fellow classmates were admitted into the College, but I was left behind. Nevertheless, I thought optimisitically and I planned to retake those courses in the fall with a better mindset. However, midway into that fall term, I talked to an advisor about catching up to graduate in four years after not passing those couple of classes. He indicated that I would not be on course for the four-year college course plan and that it would take 5 years for me to graduate if I continued to stick with my Mechanical Engineering pathway. He told me its common for engineering students to finish in 5 years. But this really broken me down mentally and it was the first time I really I felt scared about my my academic future. On top of that, I just received my fall term grades that included the classes I retook. I passed one of the classes, but failed the other classes yet again, which leaves me to have gaps (no engineering classes to take) in my schedule for these next few terms. I have to wait until this following fall to try to be admitted to the College of Engineering again and to be on track again to graduate in 5 years. Until then, my advisor suggested that I do a minor which I am uncertain about because I honestly don't know which ones to do.</p>
<p>I tried to be honest with myself. I knew that I was interested in Public Health and other sciences pertaining to Biology and Chemistry, but I knew that it wasn't probably the wisest choice to switch to those studies. But is it? My experience from the part-time job makes me excited to work with people and as a concerned citizen for health, I really cared about people. But I am very hesitant about changing my major because of the uncertainty. Due to the rigor of my engineering courses, my GPA is now hovering below a 3.0 and I knew that it's around the minimum to be admitted to many graduate schools, especially medical schools. My chances are against me and I feel like going through all the work to do biological sciences wouldn't be worth it because I feel like no school would accept me for my GPA and my 5 year graduation because of poor academic performance. I don't feel the passion or motivation to do engineering, other than I can do it if I stick with it. I'm not sure if I would be happy in the end. I also asked myself: Was I going to like it at the end? Is it worth it? I volunteered at a hospital before, but it didn't give me any clinical experience at all, we just had simple responsibilities. I feel like my engineering studies are very cut and dry; that I need to bring my studies to life. I want to do an internship or something so expose myself to those experiences. However, I missed the deadline to do the Co-op engineering program (6 month internship) this year that would have felt fine with me because they would be filling the holes of my schedule that I now have. Now I feel stuck and don't know what to do with myself. I know that if I try my best and improve my studying habits, that I can succeed, but I've said that before and I still run into failure. But since I am stubborn, yet persistent, I feel I will finish my engineering degree and see where it takes me from there. But am uncertain if its what I want to do for the future. There's a lot of pressure on me.</p>
<p>I am struggling to find myself and I feel desperate now. I deal with a lot of things that many students don't deal with and it makes for a great distraction to my studies and makes me depressed. I live at home with my parents and don't have many friends on campus. What hurts me the most is I don't have many engineering friends, so I often do homework and handle engineering business by myself. It's really tough, no one should ever do it alone. I can't take time off school because my work requires me to be a student and my family depends on the money I make from my part-time work on campus and from the extra financial aid money I receive each term. I know there's a lot of room for improvement. Any feedback or suggestions on any part of my story is greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read this.</p>