Should I go to college or grad school?

Parent Cafe
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<p>The short story:
So once upon a time I was really smart and went to Caltech on a full scholarship. Then I got horribly depressed and went on medical leave, so I went to this really crappy school ten minutes away from home. Should I transfer colleges, or wait another year and go to grad school?</p>

<p>Factors affecting my decision:
1) Whether I can get into a good college and/or grad school with my current credentials.</p>

<p>GPA: 3.8 Caltech/4.0 at current school
GRE: 1570/1600
Other: One paper from high school, two papers in the process of being published. None of them are related to math. I got top 500 at Putnam but that was frosh year so I might be able to take it again and do better. All in all I think my credentials are pretty good but I'm worried my courseload might be too light, and I'm worried graduate programs might hold my mental illness against me if they find out.</p>

<p>So far my courseload looks like this:</p>

<p>YEAR 1: frosh core at Caltech
-- Kicked out of school --</p>

<p>YEAR 2 SEMESTER 1: Intro Analysis 1, Mathematical Probability, Complex Analysis, Quantum Mechanics
YEAR 2 SEMESTER 2: nothing</p>

<p>YEAR 3 SEMESTER 1: Fractals in Psychology, Intro to Chaos, Intro to Abstract Algebra 1
YEAR 3 SEMESTER 2: Intro to Abstract Algebra 2, Algebraic Topology, LR-tableaux (1-credit independent study), General Psychology</p>

<p>YEAR 4 SEMESTER 1 and 2: stupid gen eds I need to take to graduate. Oh and I might do some research or independent study.</p>

<p>2) I have a weak background in analysis and linear algebra. I haven't taken any topology or geometry, in fact my university doesn't offer those courses except on a sporadic basis. The only math I am reasonably comfortable with is abstract algebra and I'm not even sure of that because our teachers really baby us. I'm worried that if I go to grad school right away I'll be underprepared compared to the rest of the students. (But of course if I went to college I'd take more math before moving on.)</p>

<p>3) If I go to grad school I'll be graduating in 4 years. If I go to college it'll be more like 6.</p>

<p>4) If I go to college I might suffer a horrible mental collapse. This could happen with grad school too, but then I'd have an extra year at home to "recover."</p>

<p>5) If I go to college I have to send out applications by March. This will be kind of hard because I'm about to go inpatient for a month.</p>

<p>6) For the past two years I've been taking "graduate level" classes with a bunch of 30-year-olds. I feel like if I went to grad school at age 20 I'd be missing out on the college experience. Despite trying to kill myself several times I loved my time at Caltech and I miss being a kid/hanging with people my age.</p>

<p>7) If I go to college I have to worry about losing my friends and starting again in a new place. I only have one friend here...but still. It's starting over.</p>

<p>8) Here I get put in really small classes and professors all treat me special because I'm one of the smartest ones here. Any professor here would take me on as a research student. If I went to a good college my letters of recommendation would not be as good. (I'd probably get to do cooler research though.)</p>

<p>9) I really don't want to go to college or grad school, I'd rather just lie in bed all day and go on the Internet. Maybe I should just say screw it and go to grad school here, hell I've already taken most of the master's curriculum anyway. Then I'll have a PhD in math and it'll be completely meaningless but at least I won't have to do anything for six years. I can be like the other smart kids who drink and play World of Warcraft all day.</p>

<p>So what should I do?</p>

<p>Thanks for any input or suggestions =) You guys are smart and wise so I figured I'd ask you instead of posting on the other forums.</p>

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<p>Addendum:

  1. I’m having a really bad semester and I’m thinking of dropping Algebraic Topology and General Psych. (My other professors know what’s going on with me and they’re willing to be flexible with deadlines.) How bad will 2 W’s look on my transcript? Should I try for an incomplete instead?</p>

<p>2) Someone suggested graduating from crappy school, then taking 1-3 years off to get a job someplace. (I’d probably work in a research lab.) Is this a good idea and how would it affect my chances for grad school?</p>

<p>Thanks again.</p>

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<p>ok, are you still depressed?[ sure sounds like it to me] and are you taking meds and doing something about fighting/ overcoming your depression? cause if you don’t take care of the depression, it will likely have a profound affect on everything else you do.<br>
W’s are bad, but if you can take the classes again and get great grades in them they will likely be overlooked.
yes # 2 IS a good idea, especially if you can get great letters of recommendation from your boss in the lab . Your grades in college, plus your GRE scores and positive letters from your current profs are also very important in the grad school application process, so be sure to get those letters before you leave college, as it can be hard to reach someone 3 years from now and ask them to write a letter.</p>

<p>I just reread you post. I strongly suggest you take a leave of absence from your college, get yourself mentally healthy, then return and get your degree from “crappy college”. Dropping out from Caltech is not uncommon, I hope you know that, but you will have to disclose all the colleges you attended in both applications to other colleges, should you decide to transfer, as well as in your grad school applications.</p>

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<p>Maybe what you are looking for is a balance in life. Caltech is very hard core. Maybe you aren’t a Border Collie (neurotic with an incredible drive to herd creatures 24/7 – to the point that a family Border collie will “herd” toddlers or kittens because they just can’t stand to not be working)</p>

<p>Could you be a Golden Retriever? Someone who likes some sunshine and naps in life and having some friends is really important?</p>

<p>You can also be a hybrid, with different aspects of personality popping up in different situations. </p>

<p>What you have written about seems to be the extremes: Caltech style (EXTREMELY challenging) or “crappy” school (not challenging at all?). There are some middle choices. </p>

<p>It sounds to me that the challenging chunk isn’t the math capabilities – it is the health component. I would encourage you to think health path through first. What scenario would be HEALTHIEST for you? The campus with a Magic card game room for nerds on the edge of campus would be my son’s ticket to fun and companionship. </p>

<p>I encourage you to watch “Gamers, The Rise of Dorkness” available on Netflix. There a group of Dungeons and Dragons players have adventures and some grumps together (this film was put together by Pacific Lutheran students in Tacoma). It’s a fun movie – and it addresses that important question: Which is cooler? Pirates or Ninjas?</p>

<p>It sounds like you need pals and activities as much as coursework. You have spent twenty or so years of your life learning how to be good at coursework. How much effort have you put into being good at starting and maintaining friendships? </p>

<p>Several years ago Newsweek did a story on autism. It suggested austism was on the same arc as intellectual brilliance. It quoted a professor who said that he had to learn what he thought was “a great discussion” was “a verbal beating” to others. He had to slow down and learn all sorts of techniques to make social connections. (Sounds like that was the key to keep the secretaries from quitting : ) ). </p>

<p>What if your chief goal for the next year was learning more about how to make and keep social connections? </p>

<p>Graduate school can be a shark tank. I would NOT recommend it to you unless you happened to identify a professor who was well known for being caring about his/her students and who had an ardent “gang of merry men” working as grad students. Look for the Robin Hood who you could happily follow as Little John or Friar Tuck or Alan Adale. </p>

<p>Puppies are clumsy because their feet are out of proportion to the rest of their body. They have to grow the body to match the feet before they are balanced athletes. I can’t help but wonder if you need to learn how to make the friendship connections to balance your math abilities. </p>

<p>Good luck. You have a lot to offer – but offering it may mean focusing on your short comings rather than your strengths for a bit.</p>

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<p>If you’re “about to go inpatient in a month”, this hardly seems the time to be making important life decisions.</p>

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<p>ilikephysicsalot, just a couple of comments and suggestions:</p>

<p>I am glad that you are still getting professional help, which can do more good than the best-intentioned internet posters (including, obviously, me).</p>

<p>You are still extremely smart, not just “once upon a time.”</p>

<p>How “crappy” exactly is your current college? “Crappy” relative to Caltech isn’t necessarily “crappy” in reality. Sporadic course offerings of major areas of math might be indicative of a problem, though.</p>

<p>If you were in my family, I’d advise you to gain a comfortable footing, first. Cultivate pleasures other than WoW–read, write, play a musical instrument, find a art form you enjoy, play tennis, swim, work out, do anything that’s just plain fun. Start a garden? Look around at dawn when the air is beautifully clear? Enjoy things with your friend. Allow time for attending to the medical aspect of your depression, too, but don’t let that define you. And don’t think that you have to be perfect at your current college.</p>

<p>Then, take a realistic look at the category of your college. Do students from there go to grad schools of the type that you are interested in? If so, you are ok. Read more deeply on your own. Otherwise, it might be better to apply to another college, even if that has to be delayed to 2011. There are a lot of places that you could prepare very well for grad school, that are not the ultra-top prestige colleges (and hence maybe not so stressful), and yet have Nobel laureates on the faculty. Visit schools, and look for a place with a congenial environment.</p>

<p>You might think about physics rather than math, even though you are very talented at math. Math can be a very solitary pursuit–sometimes not, but there does seem to be a lot of “alone-time” in math, which might not suit your personality. You like physics a lot, right? There are many areas of theoretical physics that need exceptionally strong math skills, but there tends to be more interaction in physics, which might be good for you.</p>

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<p>It would appear to me from reading your post that you are not on top of your mental health problem. You need to try to get well first.</p>

<p>It also sounds from your post that you are highly intelligent. I know that some of my math professors suffered from mental health disorders. They managed their disorders with medication and were able to be very effective mathematicians.</p>

<p>Good luck to you.</p>

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<p>Another thought: I think that part of the issue for you, ilikephysicsalot, is that you want to do something <em>big</em> and <em>deep.</em> That’s good! Your desire for that increases the odds of success–at the same time, I’d guess that it makes settling for the level of accomplishment represented by the typical Ph.D. somewhat difficult for you, as reflected by your comments in item 9) of your post. A lot of grad students get a significant ego boost from their first publication; but you’ve passed that milestone a while ago.</p>

<p>A Harvard professor and Nobel laureate once remarked to me that it seemed to be more difficult for the brighter students to settle into research–because they were not satisfied with a relatively routine addition to knowledge, but wanted to do something really important.</p>

<p>The opportunity to do really important work often comes in the midst of more “normal” work, when an inspiration strikes, the preparation is there, and also the researcher has a moment of luck. </p>

<p>So, you need to figure out an area where you will find the work meaningful. What have you always wondered about? What do you find especially beautiful? What would you just like to know more about? Or even, what do you find confusing? Read a lot. It’s ok to read general articles in Science, Nature, or even Scientific American. Who is doing something you care about? Where are they? What additional background do you need, to work with them?</p>

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<p>“6) For the past two years I’ve been taking “graduate level” classes with a bunch of 30-year-olds. I feel like if I went to grad school at age 20 I’d be missing out on the college experience. Despite trying to kill myself several times I loved my time at Caltech and I miss being a kid/hanging with people my age.”</p>

<p>Here’s the thing, Ilikephysicsalot: you get to do what you want in life. You are a really smart kid. It sounds like you are a nice kid, too, if professors all want to work with you. So take your time. Everyone who comes in contact with you wants you to succeed. So if you miss being a kid and hanging with people your own age, do that. Really. </p>

<p>It sounds to me like you want to be a kid, go to a school with kids that are bright enough to be interesting as friends, but not to a school with a crushing course load. You can do that. Those schools exist. It sounds like you want to take rigorous undergrad classes in math and physics until you feel like you have a complete overview of those fields nailed. This is success. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else.</p>

<p>The 4 years for grad school vs. 6 years for undergrad+grad is way too long term for you now. Do what you want in the short term (also, I’d bet $100 right now that you happily spend the rest of a long life in academia, so how you partition that hardly matters.)</p>

<p>Gosh, I really wish you happiness, kid.</p>

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<p>Aww, thanks for all the compassionate and helpful responses! This place really is great. I super-needed this help. :)</p>

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<p>Oh, it’s reeeeally bad. Most of the grad students are people going back to school after 10-20 years (or foreign students who really need the money). Algebra and analysis are the only maths offered on a regular basis, and the graduate level algebra/analysis classes use undergraduate textbooks like Beachy and Rosenlicht. I remember freshman calculus at Caltech was harder than analysis over here, which is really saying something. And don’t get me started on the undergrad classes…</p>

<p>On the bright side, if I did get a PhD here, I already know which professors are compassionate and awesome to work with. But I would probably not publish very much because most of the people here only publish like one paper their whole time in grad school (if they publish at all).</p>

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<p>I really wish I didn’t have to :frowning: It’s been super stressing me out. I just want to curl up in a ball and not have to worry about anything.</p>

<p>I guess the thing is if I don’t transfer this year I’ll probably have senior standing and then I won’t be able to transfer again. And admissions deadlines are in March.</p>

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<p>YES.</p>

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<p>Hmm, good point. I’d better do that, thanks for the reminder :slight_smile:
I’d probably get an awesome letter from my lab boss, I’ve worked for him on and off since high school and his letter got me the Caltech scholarship in the first place. But now he might think I’m flaky.</p>

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<p>lol that sounds amazing :smiley: I tried out D&D once, but I think it really varies depending on who you play it with. My group was really annoying because they took forever to go on each adventure -_-</p>

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<p>Actually it’s kind of funny because they seem to correlate :slight_smile: Like the time I spent at Caltech was also the time I had the most fun and made the most friends. I think Caltech was pretty much the ideal school for me when I didn’t want to die. Like the coursework wasn’t even that hard, I just hung out in people’s rooms all night and did my work really early in the morning.</p>

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<p>Actually I’d really like to make mathematical models of human behaviors, I even do that for fun :slight_smile: but I might go for pure math instead because the people there seem more honest. I’ve been scooped one too many times. And apparently in pure math the authorship is alphabetical…</p>

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<p>Thanks <33</p>

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<p>P.S. I just dropped Algebraic Topology. Now I have 7 credit hours and my schedule looks all n00b :frowning: I guess I had to though because I haven’t done any work for the entire semester and I’m about to go to the hospital for a month. And I’m already behind on my other classes.</p>

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<p>So all this tells you that what you are doing is not working. </p>

<p>I don’t know what exactly your inpatient time is about but I hope you load up on all sorts of reading material. Take some fun, goofy stuff. Take some “find your path” stuff. Take some religious/meaning of life stuff. It sounds like you could use some sweetness and smiles.</p>

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<p>ohai. since you guys were awesome the first time I have some more questions.
so my current plan is to finish up a degree at crappy school, then work in a lab for a while until I’m emotionally ready to go to grad school. a lot of that is because applications are due in two weeks and I was in no condition to write them. but I just called a crisis line today and they persuaded me to live. not live as in survive, but live as in actually TRY. (basically she told me if I was going to kill myself anyway I might as well make a last-ditch effort at survival and if I failed at that THEN I could kill myself. and I guess she was right about that.)</p>

<p>so now that I want to live I also want to go to a good college, like MIT or Williams. I also found out I don’t get put into the hospital until March 1st, so I have time to write my applications. so should I apply to these schools? or is it silly to make career changes just because I decided I wanted to live</p>

<p>also, I already applied to berkeley but one of my forms is two weeks late. is it worth submitting it anyway, or is a big school like berkeley gonna just throw away my app?</p>

<p>thanks :)</p>

<p>OH YEAH and some awesome person messaged me and said I should still transfer, but I should do it for next year not this year, and in the meantime I could take almost no classes and load up on research. how would this affect my transfer chances, to have an entire year out of school? I know it’s alright to do that between college and grad school…but college and college? how would I rationalize it on my application without disclosing my mental illness? is it alright to disclose my mental illness on my transfer apps?</p>

<p>also, if I wanted to do research…would it be better to do it at crappy school where I’d have my choice of professors/topics, or do it back at Caltech where I only have connections to one lab not in my area of interest?</p>

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<p>So, ilikephysicsalot, my first comment is that the world needs people of your talent. I say this not to load an obligation on you (you have had plenty of that already, I’m sure). But you are needed. I have to run now, but will add other comments later.</p>

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<p>Do you think Caltech is a source of your depression? Do you like the classes there and the environment in general? The people? It’s important to identify what is contributing to the problem as you plan your next step. </p>

<p>Just one tip I read about that is supposed to help depression. Every day before you go to bed, you should write five good things that happened that day or that you are happy about. Eventually, your spirits will lift because you will be looking for good things throughout the day. There’s a lot of positive thinking gimmicks out there, but I think this one has actually been shown to work.</p>

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<p>Will Caltech take you back? You have taken a lot of classes at “crappy college” that they might not accept as transferable[ ?], so how much longer would you need to be at Caltech to graduate if you do go back and and would you still have your scholarship? All of those questions need to be answered first, before you make a decision how to proceed. If Caltech won’t take you back, then there are other highly reputable U’s that do take small quantities of transfer students[ U of Chicago comes to mind]. But you also need to find out if you have too many units at this point to be eligible to transfer to another college. Private colleges often won’t accept some classes for transfer credit, because they require a minimum number of units or semesters[ usually it amounts to 2 years] taken at THEIR college to graduate.
In general, it will be easier to get into a top grad school program if you are coming from a more well known college. If you do have the option to return to Caltech then grad school wise that would be your best choice.
If you DO want to take a leave of absence for a year to do research, and then transfer, again, get the letters of recommendation from your current profs NOW, as they are very important for the transfer process.
re this question:
“how would I rationalize it on my application without disclosing my mental illness? is it alright to disclose my mental illness on my transfer apps?”
you can say that you were dissatisfied with your current college, wanted to give your self time to think about how to proceed AND time to continue your research outside of college.<br>
I wouldn’t disclose your mental illness on your app, because who wants to give a spot to a student who they may think is likely to drop out? Transferring to any new college can be HARD, so you need to be honest with your self as to whether you can mentally handle moving to an entirely new place, and trying to meet new friends, which also may be hard, as most students will have already been there for a couple of years and have found their circle of friends already.</p>

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<p>Promised to get back with more comments, so here are a few, with no claim to professionalism in these suggestions! I think it would be helpful to you to increase the number of simple pleasures in your life. After you have done that, then you might look outward, to see whether you can be of help to someone else–for example, providing tutoring in adult literacy or numeracy programs, helping people fill out IRS forms, tutoring children in reading, math, or science–not for transfer admissions purposes, but to increase your sense of being well-rooted. But first, just have some fun! (not WoW) </p>

<p>Also, I’d think about something connected with your long-term goals. Applying mathematics to psychology is a broad research direction with high potential. To get started on that, there are some “credentials” that you will find it relatively easy to acquire, but that will count with the psychologists with whom you might start working. One of these is knowledge of higher-level statistics. Have you taken a stats course that employs multi-variable calculus? These are interesting, and the probability component, I think you would actually find fun. Also, this might be the kind of course that you could find online–perhaps over the summer?</p>

<p>Not sure what to suggest about college transfer apps–need to think that over.</p>

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<p>[MIT</a> OpenCourseWare | Mathematics | 18.05 Introduction to Probability and Statistics, Spring 2005 | Home](<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-05Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm]MIT”>http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-05Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm)
[MIT</a> OpenCourseWare | Mathematics | 18.440 Probability and Random Variables, Spring 2009 | Home](<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-440Spring-2009/CourseHome/index.htm]MIT”>http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-440Spring-2009/CourseHome/index.htm)
[MIT</a> OpenCourseWare | Mathematics | 18.175 Theory of Probability, Fall 2008 | Home](<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-175Fall-2008/CourseHome/index.htm]MIT”>http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-175Fall-2008/CourseHome/index.htm)</p>

<p>Those are the probability classes MIT offers online. There aren’t video lectures, but a couple of the classes have lecture notes and there are assignments posted. UIUC also has an Introduction to Probability Theory class online, which you have to pay for. I’m taking the UCLA equivalent to the 2nd course listed, and I agree that it’s quite interesting.</p>