Grades, majors, I need help in any way possible

Transfer Students
1

<p>I guess this would be more of a question to ask my academic advisors about, but all they say when faced with questions like this is "Oh, well, it's up to you," and I'd like a little more concrete advice than that. This is quite long, so just skim over it if you wish, I need advice on pretty much everything I've talked about here. I don't really know to make this concise, but here goes . . . </p>

<p>I'm a freshman at the University of Kentucky and although I enjoy it here for the most part, I really want to transfer out, hopefully before my junior year (as is probably the case with most prospective transfers). </p>

<p>I came into college with great interest in Computer Science and Chemistry. It's not that I was ever really good at these subjects, even though I only took one class of Chemistry my sophomore year of high school (that was all we had) and no Computer Science (took a Computer Repair class junior year and Computer Programming was introduced into our curriculum my senior year but my schedule was too full). I had read a lot of books about medicine and computers and that sort of thing and thought those were very intriguing and might be nice things to study, so I enrolled in an advanced Chemistry class and an advanced Computer Science class for last (Fall 04) semester. I definelty knew they wouldn't be very easy, but they turned out to be even worse than I had imagined and I ended up with horrible grades in the classes. Those two grades combined with 2 excruciatingly high B's in my Honors classes (both 89's, and here a 90 is an A) left me with a 1.75 GPA, which is good by no standards. </p>

<p>So now comes the reason for this post. I aspire to transfer to one of a few top schools that I've now decided to apply for NEXT year instead of this one, and getting grades like the ones I got for my first semester will not help and may have already hurt me very much, possibly even fatally. I understand that for the moment Computer Science and Chemistry just aren't my thing and I decided to take the cowardly/sensible way out and enrolled in much easier classes for next semester; classes that I know I will do very well in. </p>

<p>I'm also worried about my choice of a major, because therein lies one of my reasons for wishing to transfer and also still presents many questions. I thought that Computer Science or Chemistry would have been good ideas, but that turned out to be wrong. I'm taking Biology and Philosophy classes next semester, (as well as Honors), and I'm sure those will turn out to be easy classes and I may want to major in one of those fields. However, I do not know of any occupations or ways I could continue life after college that involve degrees in Biology but only a rudimentary knowledge of Chemistry, and I also can't think of anything I could do with a Philosophy degree at all.</p>

<p>Music is also something I'm very interested in but have not taken any college classes in yet. (I took AP Theory and got a B, but did not take the actual exam; I knew the melodic dictation would kick my ass to the curb) Again, I don't know of anything after college I would want to do with music besides play it for a while, and then all I know how to play is the guitar, and a bit of piano and percussion sort of things. </p>

<p>Lastly, people tell me that I am a very good writer, and writing seems to be something I really could excel with as far as grades, and make a satisfactory career out of as well. However, the University of Kentucky's writing program is HORRIBLE, they have no Creative Writing major, and their Journalism department is small and I have not heard good things about it, even though when it comes to writing I'd rather write stories or columns than write for newspapers (Too much bueauracy, too much twisting of the truth from what I hear, and the only way you're able to embellish is if you want to be a lair, and there doesn't seem to be any room for expression or simple literary freedom.). Columbia Univerisity, on the other hand, does have a Creative Writing major, and though I have not heard much about it, having one would be better than not having one, and I could always minor in it. But, yet another problem lies in the fact that it would be extremely likely for me to get in if I applied for transfer to the 2005 Fall Semester, (although I might have already shot my chances down with that 1.75), and majoring in Creative Writing in 2 years or even 3 with no college writing or English classes under my belt (my AP English Comp exam, which I made a 3 on, excused me from taking the only class that's anything near to prose writing we have here, which is Eng 101, and my score on the ACT did something else which gave me credit for some other English class here) would be very difficult and unrealistic. </p>

<p>So, I seem to be pretty screwed.</p>

<p>Anyway, that about does it, I guess. As I said, if there is ANYTHING I've brought up that you'd like to comment on in any way at all, please do so. Thanks.</p>

2

<p>im sorry my eyes quit about halfway through. another more bullet style post with your stats and a brief overview, including where your looking to go and your major, would be helpful</p>

3

<p>I don't know how I would reorganize the post with leaving all the pertinent info in. The gist is that I'm very worried about my grades, but then again I'm not worried very much in a way, and I'm worried about what I should choose as my major and how that might affect me in transferring and how much easier certain majors might be, and a whole lot of other stuff. Basically my college situation right now is very complicated and I'm very indecisive about many parts of it, and I would really like advice on any of my post from anyone at all, and advice like "Well, with your GPA how it is, you already won't be able to transfer and your life is ruined so there's nothing you can do. See ya" is not the sort of thing I'm looking for, because I'm already aware of all that, for the most part. I just need any advice you can give me on anything at all I've talked about in my post. Thanks.</p>

4

<p>If you want to transfer, then work hard and ace all your classes from now on, if you have a good high school record then you have a better chance as a sophomore transfer opposed to junior, on the other hand if your college gpa isnt good applying as a junior transfer will give you time to boost it. </p>

<p>Choose your major based on what YOU want to do, take no consideration at all towards how easy it may be or if certain ones will help you get into a different university. Choosing your major is something you will have to do for yourself, no one else will be able to help you with that. What do YOU want to do with your life? A major in biology in particular, since you asked about that, will have more than a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry, as you'll have to take inorganic and organic chemistry and maybe biochemistry as well. The most common fields a biology major goes into are medicine, research, or teaching. </p>

<p>Dont ever take classes you dont really want to take just because they're easier, just work harder and take things slow, dont jump into an advanced course of something you have no knowledge about, i mean come on that's common sense. And how did you manage to take an advanced college chem class and an advanced comp sci class with only one basic chem class from soph yr in high school and no comp sci background. Does your college not have prerequisites?</p>

<p>On a side note, and I really hate to say this, but in my opinion you have no chance at transferring into an elite school, aim lower go for top 50 schools maybe. Your best chance is to transfer as an english or writing/journalism major of some sort. Then the grades in chem and comp sci wont seem as big of a deal since they are unrelated to major. I wouldn't bother with biology since chem and math are related to that.</p>

5

<p>The factors that come heaviest in play for transfers are the grades at the current college and the reason for the transfer. Just not liking the school is not considered a good enough reason to transfer "up" to a more selective college. Generally, the student has to show interest in an area that is at the college targeted and show that the opportunities are not there at the current school. That is how my nephew succesfully transferred from a nonselective school to a very selective school. </p>

<p>In your case, yes, you do write well. But you need to demonstrate that with high grades in courses with a lot of writing. If you like creative writing and there is no such course at your school, you need to find a venue for that writing and WRITE. Show the prospective colleges how you are reaching out and writing and the gap between what is there for you and what you can do. And as far as creative writing goes, much of the creative part is creating stuff to fit your audience regardless of how it is not ideal. You need to be taking every opportunity available to write. Apply for some writing workshops over the summer, submit articles and stories to magazines, WRITE.</p>

6

<p>Thank you all for your advice. </p>

<p>To ndhawk, I'm thinking about applying for transfer at least to Columbia as a Creative Major (which is also probably not extremely popular which I hear helps), but I do not want to confine myself to just that in case I (with luck on my side) arrive at Columbia and decide to perhaps minor in Creative Writing and major in something else, as I'm worried that doing so might present complications.</p>

<p>I was able to take advanced Chemistry and advanced Computer Science courses in the sense that there were beginner classes before those but I "clepped out" of both or whatever the term is because of my ACT Math score. The classes I took were still 100-level classes, just a little harder than what some others took as their first Chemistry and Computer Science classes. Also, I had registered for a 200-level English class for the same reason, but its title, "Intermediate Writing" had me thinking that it was a higher level prose writing sort of class, when a more fitting name for it would have been "How to Write Better Research Papers," and I don't know about some of you people but that sort of thing doesn't really interest me, so I dropped the class.</p>

<p>To Jamimom, thank you for the compliment. </p>

<p>There are many pertinent reasons that I wish to apply to both Columbia and Yale, such as Columbia's Core and their Creative Writing major, and Yale's abundance of singing groups (only one here that you don't have to be in a class for, and the class takes up a whole lot of time, actually more time per week than the credit hours that are given for it) as well as its little forest which is pretty cool and its atmosphere. Believe me, if I was transferring simply for prestige, I would have applied to Cornell or NYU a while ago or I would be thinking about trying them out next year, since you can apply to them for both their Spring and Fall semesters which would therefore get me there sooner if I got in.</p>

<p>I have gotten a few stories printed in my hometown's community college's literary magazine (which gets submissions from all the area, like even some from Tennessee and such, so I guess it's SORT OF a big deal), and I submitted a few to UK's Honors Program's literary magazine, but the results haven't been given out yet. </p>

<p>I am planning to do some sort of writing thing over the summer but I'm not sure how or what, especially that would grant me college credit which would be nice in that it would help to raise my GPA. I see students on here that are planning to transfer with college GPAs of 4.0 and high school GPAs of 3.7, so I have a lot of work to do. (Even though, Im sorry, but I think that if I had taken only business and marketing classes my first semester I'd have a 4.0 too. No offense to business and marketing majors but those classes seem extremely easy. Perhaps many of you out there are smart and talented but most of the Marketing, Advertising, and Business majors here are the airheads and stereotypical a-hole fratboys. Now Economics seems to be a different story . . .) If I had only taken classes for my Fall semester that I knew would be easy but still things I was interested in, like Philosophy and perhaps Biology, as I'm doing this Spring semester, then perhaps I would have gotten a 4.0, but oh well.</p>

<p>If those who have posted already or anyone else has any good advice or comments then feel free to post them.</p>

7

<p>Bump, and for some reason I now have to make this longer than 10 characters. So that about does it.</p>