Hi. I spent the better part of a decade drinking my face off and coping poorly with unmanaged mental illness. I am bipolar 1 and a raging alcoholic. My transcripts are crap right now.
I’ve been going to a community college on and off for 7 years. And by on and off, I mean I go when I’m functional, which has been almost never. I have 40 credits, a 3.0 GPA, 14 W’s, and 2 F’s.
When I am functional, I produce straight A’s consistently in every subject. I am a fantastic, bright, well-organized, motivated student. When I’m not functional, which is when I’m drinking, I drop classes.
I recently decided that I need to get serious about my life. This decision has come as a result of the immense pain and suffering brought on by my choice to medicate a mental illness with booze. It was a terrible idea to start with. I am in treatment for both mental illness and addiction and I’m taking it very seriously.
My choice of major is mathematics, which means I’ll need grad school if I want a job. If I can produce A’s (and maybe the occasional B) for the duration of my undergrad experience, could I still get into grad school?
“If I can produce A’s (and maybe the occasional B) for the duration of my undergrad experience, could I still get into grad school?”
This is only a guess. However, my guess is yes. You have a mixed record up to now, but you also have a pretty good GPA. You have already shown potential. What you need to demonstrate is the ability to put your life together and put together a string of semesters with good grades.
If I am reading your post correctly, you still have at least the rest of this year needed at community college, then 2 more years of undergrad. At least IMHO this is long enough that if you can consistently do well for this period of 2 1/2 years then this will demonstrate that you are finally ready for graduate school.
By the way, I was a math major for my Bachelor’s degree, and then studied Operations Research for my Master’s. If math is your thing, OR is at least something that you might want to look at. Good luck and best wishes!
What do you want to do? You may be able to teach HS or middle school math with just an undergraduate degree. A pure math professor position is honestly going to be a lot harder to achieve.