Grad School for Computer Science

He would not be the first college senior to decide that grad school was less scary than the real world. Has he had any internships or other real world experience in his field, or will graduation be his first exposure?

Try to get GPA at least 3.0 before leaving college because it may help in the future.

Thank you everyone for the feedback. He ran the calculator and even if he got A’s in every class from here out he still does-not think he can get a 3.0. The thing for me is I am just happy to see him graduate next year with his bachelors degree as it seems it has been a long road to get him here. He was diagnosed with depression in high school which turned out to be the wrong diagnosis which was figured out sophomore year of college. He has ADHD and once on the correct medication he went from night to day. The damage had been done with 2 years of poor grades.

He did already pay for the GRE for October with his own money. I told him once we see the scores well have to decide which way to go. There are about a handful of colleges including Chapel Hill that dont look at GPA alone to get into grad school. They look at whole package.

I am not going to stress yet (of course parent always stresses:) I am going to see whet GRE looks like. If the grades come high then well sit down again and try to work it through…if scores are low then he will definitely need to start looking for a job. One thing I have stressed to him is not to worry as he always has a place at home until he gets a job or figures out his next steps in life. I dont want him to freak out senior year when you only do senior year once in your life.

@Nurse001 - You are correct that programs look at more than just the GPA. however, the GPA does tell you a very important thing and that is whether the student is likely to be able to handle the graduate course work. If your student has below a 3.0 in his upper division CS courses, then it will be challenging for him to keep a 3.0 GPA in graduate school, which is what he will need to actually get a MS.

Honestly, it would be wise for him to work for a while and then if he sees that a Masters degree is useful for his career, he might have a better chance and motivation to succeed. The work experience van count for a lot too. From your comments, he seems to like actually coding more than taking classes. My son had the same kind of attitude. He really did not like taking classes and has thrived as a software engineer in the financial industry.

With regards to teaching, he can certainly teach at the High School level without a Masters. He simply needs to take courses to get a teaching credential. These are often at the undergraduate level.

@xraymancs Thank you for your comments. It seems so stressful to me that out of the air he wants to do his masters. Well he paid for the GRE so well see how well he does. I have a feeling in seeing how much goes into applying for his masters he will rethink that. I told him its all him applying and paying for applications. It is not like when he applied for his bachelors with “Mom” doing the work :slight_smile:

As a father, I know how you can worry about your child. However, he is an adult and needs to figure things out for himself. Perhaps applying for a Masters is good experience no matter the outcome.

@xraymancs Exactly as I am trying to take a step back since he is 21 years old and let him fly on his own. I told him I will be there if he needs help but he is running the show. From applications for school or job applications. I know at the end of the year if he was successful great if not he will graduate which will be our pride and joy to experience that with him. Then he will move home and maybe travel a bit and figure it out from here. I keep telling him life is a journey and have your whole life ahead. Now that I said that as a mom, it is hard to let go :wink: