EPTI go to a public university in the US that is particularly known for its STEM programs. It was the best university I was accepted to by far, and it was a bit of a long shot for me since I wasn't a particularly exceptional high school student. Being caught up in the competitive nature of college admissions I wanted to attend the most prestigious university that would accept me, so I ultimately went with the school I'm at now. After a successful first few weeks of my first semester I thought I was hot shit and stopped attending lectures thinking it was a waste of time. My grades quickly tanked with my motivation and confidence following shortly after. I became depressed and withdrew from any bit of a social life I had. I ended up finishing the semester with a 1.81 GPA.
My parents weren't upset but very concerned. I had never gotten below a B in high school and here I am getting a C and an F my first semester in college. I took the winter break to get my thoughts together and decided I would pursue a CS major since the one class I was very successful in that first semester was an introductory programming course and I enjoyed solving problems with a computer weren't feasible by hand. Anyways, with renewed confidence and a bit more direction on where I was heading in life things seemed to be getting better. I loved the CS classes I was taking (intro to OOP and intro to discrete math) and I really enjoyed my physics class as well. I ended the semester with a 4.0 GPA and feeling like I could conquer anything.
I ended up staying for summer term to repeat the class I had failed the first semester (chemistry) and have its grade replaced in my cumulative GPA (hooray for freshman forgiveness). Summer semester went alright. I only took 6 hours of classes and I had a lot of free time, but by the end I was so sick of all my free time and being bored I was struggling to concentrate on school work. Unfortunately this cost me my A in chem and I ended up with something like an 87, but hey, it's better than an F! After summer my overall GPA is a 3.44 so I've definitely made a solid recovery. Everything's all rainbows and sunshine now right?! Not quite.
Over the summer my interests started to shift a bit though. I still really enjoy programming, but I'm not sure if I want a programming career in industry that I'd be likely to get with just a BS. While a CS degree seems to open a lot of opportunities for employment, a lot of them seem like tedious code monkey jobs, even if the pay is solid. I want to do research in areas like machine learning/AI or quantum/bio computing since I find math and its applications like cs and physics fascinating. The problem is throughout grade school I've only been taught arithmetic. Even in classes like AP Calculus it was never about understanding the theorems and proofs, but can you do this exact type of question that shows up on the AP exam every year. I want to understand the theorems and proofs though! It's the building blocks of all the applications of math! But at this point whenever I crack open my calc 3 book and try to understand a proof I feel like I'm reading gibberish, I just feel so far behind. I can just memorize the arithmetic by going over the homework and be well off and quizzes and tests like I've been doing for so long, but it no longer feels right. I feel like I'm wasting my time.
So here I am in the first few weeks of my second semester. Things aren't horrible yet, but they aren't great either. My calc 3 professor has an extremely thick accent that makes understanding him a challenge, but I have a great TA so everything is ok. Or so I thought. Turns out he's not my TA. Two recitations for the same class were taking place a few doors down from each other, and with neither of them taking attendance I ended up attending the wrong one for a few weeks. The quizzes they give were slightly different, and after the quiz we found out I wasn't on the roster so I had to attend the correct recitation. Turns out this TA's english is MUCH worse than the professor, and instead of doing examples like the first TA she only writes proofs which doesn't help a whole lot when the professor spends most of his time writing the same proofs. I emailed the professor asking if I could continue to attend the wrong TA's recitation and he said I can't to avoid confusing the TAs. Basically I'm S.O.L and can't drop the course now without a W. To top it all off I was just rejected from getting an interview for a tutoring position for the CS dept. I don't see how I'm suppose to get an interview with an actual software company or get a research position in a lab if I can't even get an interview for a tutoring position at my own school.
Even after all my bitching I can't say I hate the school or my life here. Sometimes I just wish I went to a smaller school that was a little more personal, even at the expense of the schools prestige. I'm of the opinion now that the quality of the information I learn and the opportunities available to me are more important than the name of the university on the degree. At this point I'm not sure what to do. I would like to even be able to consider transferring to a smaller university, but my mom moved here during my freshman year so I could get instate tuition, which makes a huge difference in the amount I would have to pay after this semester. I didn't ask her to do it, but I think she just wanted to be closer to my sister and I. I would feel like a major dick if I moved away again. But graduating with just an O.K. GPA probably won't do much for me regardless of the caliber of the school. fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck I don't know what to do. Some days I just feel like saying fuck it and switching majors to math with a minor in comp sci so I can start over and learn math the right way while still being able to take cs and physics classes.
Goddamn this ended up even longer than I expected. If you managed to read this far I really appreciate, I really do. I'm just happy to get this out and maybe get some sleep.
