GPA is bad due to undergrad of mental illness; how do I make a better future with grad school?

Graduate School
1

My GPA is 2.0. Yeah, I barely graduated undergrad from UCSD in Biology. The grades of the last few quarters were definitely higher but no one is going to care. Long story short, I had severe untreated depression for over half of my undergrad due to family issues and social anxiety. Came pretty close to offing myself; of course, parents didn’t understand or care because “You’re just lazy/stupid/dull-witted/etc.” Gotta love Asian mentalities…mental illnesses are just a Western construct right? No way your kid could be depressed because they have a loving family and they’re in a great college! It’s all the kid’s fault.

PLEASE SKIP THIS NEXT BIT IF YOU DON’T WANT DETAILS:
I crawled out of it because an academic counselor realized something was off with me during a meeting to discuss my failing grades. I told her I would study all day, don’t bother with eating (I felt no hunger during the depths of depression), and slept erratically. I just figured it was a good thing I didn’t need to eat or sleep much because it freed up time for studying. But no matter how much I studied, nothing ever seem to stick or come through. Testing and classes made me feel horrible because I hated the feelings of judgement I felt (anxiety) whenever people spoke to me. I figured everyone disliked me right off the bat because I didn’t know how to talk to people (spent HS and pre-HS just studying and alone). I was lonely but I figured people weren’t needed.

The academic counselor convinced me to go to the mental health counseling and walked me to their emergency services on the spot; if I hadn’t walked with her, she was about to call 911 for suicide potential. I’m pretty glad she saw what was wrong when I didn’t because I am certain I would have jumped off those lovely cliffs near UCSD if I’d carried on the way I did.

Getting proper treatment and all, I dragged my GPA from 1.something to a 2.0 and managed to graduate. I was hoping to find work and try to save up money for grad school but I ended up struggling to find work. Even menial stuff demands experience nowadays. I lucked out with help here and there for service jobs and supported myself with commission work.

THE RELEVANT STUFF I’M CURRENTLY WORRIED ABOUT:
This past fall, I applied to various CSU grad programs in various biology-related fields along with Chapman Uni’s Food Science program. Got rejected from all.

I’m approaching 2 years out of undergrad and getting desperate. I read around that recommendations can really help for graduate school. I have absolutely ZERO recommendations. Remember the aforementioned anxiety? The feelings that people would hate me immediately as soon as they met me? That applied to everyone, including my professors. I had purposefully tried to make myself unnoticeable in class. Now I’m paying the price for not seeing a professional about my mental illnesses earlier.

So the whole point of this rambling story: How do I get into a graduate program with a 2.0 GPA, no recs, and not a ton of experience in anything relevant? What do I have to do to make myself eligible? (THOUGH, getting a second Bachelors and not messing that one up is the ultimate final plan if everything else fails.) I am open to nearly any discipline that will take me since I don’t have the luxury of choosing anymore. I do prefer to stay in California though because I don’t think I can afford a move out of state AND tuition.

I do know some things: try to get work in relevant fields, get recs through there, don’t write silly sob story personal essays. While I wish there was a way for me to convey how dark some of my undergrad days were, I know no admission committee is going to give a crap. They probably get drivel like that all the time. My bad GPA is still my fault even if it wasn’t from academic laziness; I should have gotten treatment earlier.

EDITED TO ADD: My GRE score was actually pretty good. I just don’t qualify in other arenas, sadly.

2

Given your GPA and lack of relevant experience, the only route I can see for you is to try to find a technician job in a university laboratory (even starting by volunteering if you can afford it) and then take a graduate class or two at that university. If you can somehow show that you are able to do well in graduate level classes, you might get a look from a Masters program.

3

How did you apply to graduate school with no recommendations? Every grad program I know of requires recommendations. If you have no recommendations, you don’t get in even if you have a 4.0.

If you have no cultivated recommendations from undergrad, you just have to cultivate them now. I agree with @xraymancs - if your goal is in biology, you need to get some technician experience in a laboratory and maybe take a few graduate courses as a non-degree student, proving that you can handle the work and getting some professors to write you recommendations.

But then there’s this

This doesn’t make sense, OP. A graduate degree is a means to an end - you need to get a graduate degree that’s going to help you reach a goal of some career that you really want to do, not just get one to have one. that goes even more for a second bachelor’s degree. They really aren’t that useful unless you get one in a field where the bachelor’s is the entry-level degree (like nursing or engineering) or if you are trying to get into a graduate program in a field completely different from the one you went to undergrad in.

Also…2 years out of undergrad is, like, no time at all. No need to feel desperate.

4

Google around and read the stories of what successful people did who had low gpa in undergrad. There is one at UCSD in neuroscience Asst Prof Bradley Voytek who had sub 2.0 his first 2 years. These people usually didn’t get directly into grad school. And yes, people do care that you did better in your major and in the last 2 years.

5

I forgot to mention that I applied with a few professional recs because that’s what I was told to do. But I sort of regretted it afterwards since it wasn’t relevant to the programs unfortunately.

Yes, you’re right about degrees being a means to an end. I guess the issue right now is I’m not entirely happy with careers relating to biology. I’d wanted to change during undergrad but my parents guilt-tripped me into keeping it (they were harboring med school dreams). I’d already felt like a “bad child” for going to therapy for my depression so I felt obligated to obey them. I regret not rebelling then, but it’s very hard to disconnect yourself from a lifetime of hearing tiger parenting rhetoric.

So yes, I guess I am looking for a way to change career paths. I just don’t know what step to take next since my grades are in shambles. Engineering is something I have been fond of and my own father had pushed it for a while as an engineer himself (until he became too enamored with the idea of boasting about an MD kiddie). I guess I need something that allows for creativity to a certain degree but is still in the realms of hard sciences. But I don’t think it’s practical to get a bachelors in it just yet. Been told an MBA is useful but I have heard very mixed things about it so I remain cautious before jumping into that time and financial investment.

And for full-disclosure, yes, I did pursue a pre-med path for a while in college. During highschool, I was most definitely depressed, but it didn’t affect me as deeply to the point of disturbing grades. In college, after I started taking pre-med coursework and volunteering and such, I quickly realized I hated the idea of being a doctor or a nurse. If I were to become a doctor, I’d probably make House look like the Dalai Lama. Also, a lot of my older friends were graduating from med school deeply in debt and struggling to pay off loans. But I was convinced I was “stuck” on that path since I chose it and didn’t know I could have changed until too late.

Hahaha when I’m calm, I can tell myself 2 years out isn’t that long. It’s just particularly hard when you have a mother sending passive-aggressive emails and messages about highschool classmates who are working, having children (the old Asian “WHERE ARE MY GRANDKIDS?”), and “moving on” with their lives while you feel stuck in a rut. I do try to ignore her though, since a lot of those people have very different life goals from me (ie prioritizing starting a family, living in a specific location next door to their parents, marriage, etc.) I don’t care what other people want from me anymore. I just want to meet my personal goals.

6

The route to graduate school with a low GPA is through the back door. Start to take a graduate class one semester at a time as a non-degree student. Get excellent grades and get to know your professors. Then apply to graduate programs as a degree-seeking student.

7

If you aren’t sure what you want to do next, going to graduate school isn’t a great way to figure it out. What if you start a program and realize you don’t like it? Graduate programs are very specialized; you don’t get to try several things out at once. What you should do instead is work. Working makes you money instead of spending it, and you get time to figure out what work tasks you enjoy and which ones you don’t like. This is especially important if your grades are bad - because you put some time and distance between your undergraduate grades and your current reality.

Besides, you don’t have to work biology careers just because your undergrad is in biology. Most careers don’t really care what your undergrad major is and I know people with undergrad majors in all kinds of fields doing all kinds of other things.

I know it’s hard (I spent 6 years getting a PhD while my friends were working and taking trips, and I’m just starting my career while they’re having babies and buying houses). But…you have to learn to push past it and deal with it mentally. I had to learn how to ignore my parents - and in return, they had to learn to stop asking those dumb questions. Usually when I gave them a blank stare. Besides, if your parents are asking where the grandchildren are when you are just 2 years out of undergrad and not married, they are not totally grounded in reality anyway :slight_smile: Parents always have to learn to deal with the fact that times have changed and their kids will almost certainly not follow the same paths they did.