Possible career change

langfor6

I'm thinking about going back to school. I graduated with a BA in English Lit in 2001, but I had a rather poor GPA (2.4).

I'm considering a complete career change, for instance into something more math and science oriented, like engineering or medicine. I'm not really looking to pursue a graduate degree in literature at all.

The problem I'm having is that I have about 120 credits of low GPA preventing me from getting into any programs. Most of the ones I've looked at have requirements of 3.0 or higher.

Is there any way to overcome my previous poor performance? Any sort of conditional acceptance offered by schools? Any way I can make a deal with a department head to get in? For argument's sake, let's assume I'm fully capable of doing the coursework in a math or science oriented discipline, and just need a chance to prove it.

Should I just give up these crazy ideas and go work in a sweatshop factory for the rest of my days?

Incenjucar

Have you tried getting your worst grades erased or replaced?

langfor6

It has been a long time since I've been in school, so bear with me here, but when I attended the only way to replace grades was to retake the class. My school had a limit on how many credits you could retake, which I think I maxed by my second year. It took me five years to get a four year degree. My college career was a very ugly debacle that I'm not exactly proud of, even though I'm the first in my family to graduate from college.

As far as erasing grades, I'm not sure how one goes about doing that. I thought my transcript was basically set in stone.

matt has a problem

Actually, most college offer forgiveness programs. Basically, you go away for 3 years, and you can come back and start out retaining your credits, but not your GPA. I know this because I did it, left after the first semester of my freshman year with a .27 (yes, decimal to the left of the 2), and came back 3 years later for a second go at it. The only thing usually with credit hours is that there's a tuition increase after a certain number if you haven't gotten a degree yet, but they don't prohibit you from taking more. Since you have your BA, most likely you can just start fresh on a new degree with no problems.

D-Butz

I know it's not the most appealing idea, but have you thought of going to a community college/junior college/sister school. For example, University of Texas has strict GPA requirements such as those you mentioned. However, UT at San Antonio doesn't have the same GPA requirements. You can go for one year, do really well, and it's much easier to be accepted into UT. I know plenty of people who have done it that way, and in almost all of the cases, all credits towards their major transferred, and they didn't have to graduate late. Of course UT isn't the only school that does that, it's just one I have extensive experience with.

langfor6

I have considered doing that actually. My two concerns are as follows:

1. If the accepting school uses a cumulative GPA. When you have 120 credits with a GPA of 2.4, one year's worth of classes isn't going to make much impact, even if the average from that year was 4.0.

2. A lot of schools have limits on the amount of credits you can transfer in. Already having my BA, I don't really want to take general education classes that don't pertain to my major a second time.

A forgiveness program would be nice, sort of like a statute of limitations on my GPA. I'm just not sure what criteria they would use to accept me to their school other than my records.

I'm considering attempting to contact a department head and discussing the possibility of attending the school as a Post-bacc student, taking the prerequisite courses for the program, and using that as the basis for acceptance as a degree seeking student. I just don't know if it will work. As a graduate of an English program, if I was to pursue a degree in engineering, for instance, I would have to take a lot of math and science classes, and I'm hoping that would establish a baseline for them to accept me into a program.