Help! 18yo Lost in Canada | Math & Science Passion

[jbberinger]

I'm currently 18 years old..19 febuary. I graduated from high school last year, and I'm currently just working and trying to sort out my life. I'm living in Alberta, Canada...but I was born and lived in the US for the first 10 years of my life. My parents were born in Canada so I am a dual citizen. I would suspect this would make studying/living in the US pretty easy.

My entire life, I've had a deep passion for math and science. One problem I've had over the past years as a result of my broad interests, is narrowing down my prospective field of study. The only thing I know for a fact is that I want to go to university and study some form of math or science.

But here's the catch...
I really messed up my last year of high school because of certain problems I won't get into at the moment. So I'm sitting on an embarrassing core average. I need to get myself in gear and focus on my future. I'm going to have to do some upgrading before I can be accepted into an institution.

I just need some advice and support...which is why I came here. I'm going to have to upgrade by re-doing a lot of grade 12. I have the option of going to my old high school for the second semester in January and taking the courses over again, or doing them at home. Another option i have is applying to a college for january, and upgrading there for 2nd semester and transfering into a university from there next year.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Junior/Community College. Usually no admission tests, you can boost your grades up while taking college credit, and that's all that will matter for a University. I got accepted to my current University on good Community College grades and fair High-School grades. Didn't matter. What matters to them is that you have improved and want to get better and learn more.

J/CC is also a lot cheaper.

 

[scorpa]

If you get accepted to a college to upgrade and decide to transfer to University later your high school marks will no longer matter, just what you took at college. One option you could look at if you want to study science/math is to apply for a university transfer program, they have them at red deer college i believe. Do your first two years of your degree there and then you can transfer to U of A, U of C or U of L for your last two years. I know a few people going that route

 

[jbberinger]

yea.
they have the transfer program at grant mac in edmonton, and mount royal in calgary.
i'm glad you all think it's worth doing. I don't think I'm down for red deer college, i'd rather be in edmonton or calgary.

 

[scorpa]

I also have some friends at Grant Mac doing the transfer thing and they love it, it also helps them avoid the university weeding out years. U of A is a great school, I am sure you will love it once you get there. Great science program!

 

[viet_jon]

I'm not sure about Alberta, but I would guess it's similar to Ontario.

Those articulate program's where you do 3 year college, then 2 year University is not the same as a regular degree.

For instance, if you take Mechanical Engineering in college for three years, then do two more years (mohawk and mcmaster has one), you do not get a degree in Engineer. You will get a bachelor of Technology B.tech. Go read your school's website carefully, this small piece of information is usually barried somewhere hard to find.

In regards of starting in College, then applying as a "transfer" student to a University. Yes they do consider your high school marks, especially Engineering. You still need your calc/eng4u/phys4u/chem4u and qualifying marks to make the cut-off. Your post-secondary marks are taken into consideration, but in no way are they the primary.

College and University programs are very different. You do not learn the same thing, hence you can be doing really well in a College program, but if you don't have the pre-req's, then you will not have the foundation to learn at the university level.

 

[Asphodel]

I really messed up my last year of high school because of certain problems I won't get into at the moment. So I'm sitting on an embarrassing core average. I need to get myself in gear and focus on my future.

Well, how bad is it? Without specifics, I'm inclined to think: 1) It's just one year. If you did well previously, it's likely to be somewhat overlooked. 2) GPA isn't everything. Good ACT/SAT scores plus a well-written application essay will probably matter more. Especially if it's made you realize you need to get your act in gear and not waste your first few years of college screwing around.

If you don't apply, you definitely won't get in. Don't rely on getting accepted to only one place, same as any other prospective college student.

 

[mgb_phys]

I don't know about Canada but the number of students wanting to study science and engineering in the UK has been dropping so fast that I think the entry requiremment is now anyone willing to do it!

 

[viet_jon]

I don't know about Canada but the number of students wanting to study science and engineering in the UK has been dropping so fast that I think the entry requiremment is now anyone willing to do it!

I wish that was the case here...official numbers from UW

Program Name: Engineering

Percent who received an entering average of 95%+: 8.0
Percent who received an entering average between 90% and 94%: 31.8
Percent who received an entering average between 85% and 89%: 40.2
Percent who received an entering average between 80% and 84%: 17.1
Percent who received an entering average between 75% and 79%: 2.5
Percent who received an entering average between 70% and 74%: 0.3
Percent who received an entering average below 70%: 0.0
Overall Average: 88.1

 

[HungryChemist]

I was in similar situation as yours. I graduated high school in Florida, applied University of Florida, got rejected. Spent an year working at the gas station thinking about what to do with my life.

Here's what I did. I moved to California alone. Worked part time while going to junior college. You can handle this with no support from anyone(since you're citizen). I did this you can do it too.

I earned a.a degree from junior college then transferred to big major university in California. The university transfer program in junior college is really really good. I mean, there' no trick to it. You follow the plan that's already set out for you (see assist.org) then you will most certainly transfer to school of your choice(among UC). I would say, the quality of education I received back in junior college was excellent. It really well prepared me for the upper-level courses and I did decently well in my current university.

Now, I'm in applying grad school to study Physics. Looking back, going to junior college in California (not sure about how other state works) was best decision I made.

From the day one of my junior college and up until now, NO ONE ever asked me what my high school performance were. So, you can forget about your high school entirely as well as SAT.So, don't hesitate!

 

[Chris Hillman]

Ditto those who said chances are you can get into a research university somewhere, possibly after spending a year in a community college. If you ace your first year math/physics courses no-one will care about anything that happened in high school.

Wow, Laura1013 [post=1510664]really loves[/post] the U of Alabama, Huntsville! So there you go, apply there and see what happens. The worst that can happen is that you become an engineer and work for NASA

 

[jbberinger]

Here's what I did. I moved to California alone. Worked part time while going to junior college. You can handle this with no support from anyone(since you're citizen). I did this you can do it too.

I earned a.a degree from junior college then transferred to big major university in California. The university transfer program in junior college is really really good. I mean, there' no trick to it. You follow the plan that's already set out for you (see assist.org) then you will most certainly transfer to school of your choice(among UC). I would say, the quality of education I received back in junior college was excellent. It really well prepared me for the upper-level courses and I did decently well in my current university.

hey, i really like the sounds of that. I was born in Los Angeles, but moved to New York when i was only 2 months old. I've always wanted to go back and live there. Maybe I can could really get this to work.

What junior college did you attend? I would like to start saving and getting on top of this right away.