Earning an Associate means nothing unless you plan to stop there, so don’t focus on it. However, taking the right classes NOT for an Associate but to transfer, would definitely mean 2 years of free college. And if you got an ACT 32 or 1400 CR+M on your SAT, you’d get 8 semesters of free tuition at UAlabama, meaning you could get your Master’s in Social Work too, so free grad school on top of it and the ability to make a living right after college. (Note that Social Workers make VERY LITTLE so you need to choose universities that will give you large scholarships. If you’re very low income, it means 100% need universities and universities where your test scores allow you to get full tuition/full ride.
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/schools-that-meet-100-of-financial-need-2/
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html)
There are other ways you can positively impact a child’s life: work in Public Health, in Urban Planning, as a child psychologist, as a shelter controller, as a teacher… During your two years of gen eds you’ll be able to explore many subjects and think about what you want to do for a job.
The caveat is that you’d have to do well in your college classes. The normal load is 5 classes a semester but for your first semester you should take only 4 to ease yourself into the pace, unless you’ve already handled 5 AP classes and gotten A’s.
Indeed, you’ll have 3 class meetings per week over 4 months to cover the same amount of material as an AP class that meets 5 times a week for 10 months. That gives you an idea of the pace. Each class period will require 2-3 hours of homework (students often underestimate how much they’re supposed to know, and really “know” it in depth, not just “recognize” or “have an idea of”.) You’ll need to schedule plenty of library time.
The normal expectations if you were in a 4-year college (and thus what you’d need to take in order to transfer in a favorable position) would be you take 2 semesters of English Composition (preferably the Honors version), Math (precalculus + either calculus or statistics - college statistics may actually be more important for social work), foreign language through Level 3 (Level 2 = Level 3 in HS - and I’d strongly suggest, if you stick to Social Work or may consider teaching, that you consider a minor in a foreign language in order to have fluency in it and understand another culture, its problems, its ways of thinking, its values, etc.), Sociology, Psychology (1-2 courses each), art (1), history/philosophy/literature (1), 2 science classes with lab = total, 14 classes.
So, first semester = 4 classes, second semester = 5 classes, first semester senior year 4 classes (to leave room for college applications, unless you’re done over the summer in which cases 5 classes), 2nd semester senior year 4-5 classes, total = 14-15 classes and you’re done with all your gen eds for most universities on your list.
A typical first semester would include English, Math, plus either Foreign Language or Science AND sociology or psychology. You could of course register for 5 classes and see if you’re getting less than a B in a class, drop it before it turns into a W on your transcript (there’s a deadline by which you can drop and the class never appears on your transcript).