Honest advice on Second Bachelor's needed

[HSnell]

After finishing my undergraduate BA Math degree with a 2.78 GPA, no good recommendations, and no strong major related extracurricular activities to speak of, I have decided to a second bachelor's. I have a few reasons I'd like to mention, and I would appreciate anyone's advice or thoughts on the matter.

In hindsight, I don't think I was nearly mature enough at the beginning of my undergraduate experience to handle an undertaking like a college level degree. I pretty much wasted my first two years bumming around because I didn't know what to do in college, allowed my GPA to drop tremendously, and spent the last two years playing a painful game of catch up after a very strong wakeup call. And now, at the end of it all, I feel very unfulfilled and quite upset that I didn't realize the importance of a degree much earlier on. I think worst of all, the thing that's bothering me the most is that I know I could have done much better and succeeded if I'd done things differently.

In state tuition for schools in my state is quite cheap, and I may be able to get the entire thing covered by financial aid.

Furthermore, although there are graduate schools and jobs available for students with GPAs like mine, none of them are the ones that I am, at this time, willing to settle for. My sheer curiosity and ability in my major has grown considerably as of late, but I also know that not looking good in an application package is too difficult of a burden to overcome. As well, I think it would be too difficult to try to defend and build on an academic record like mine, especially when most of the jobs that I am searching for are academic based.

My final reason is somewhat more of a philosophical one but certainly the one that bothers me the most. I know that I have the ability to do very well in my major because I have been able to understand and enjoy the conceptual beauty of mathematics. But, my poor performance in my introductory level courses has left a great number of gaps in my ability to express mathematics fluently on paper. As such, I know for a fact that it is impossible to build on and make a career out of any skill (math in this case) that requires practice, especially mathematics. If there is anything that I have learned about mathematics, it is an art excelling in the science of precision and accuracy. It is not even close to enough to "get what's going on;" the language of your thought must be as accurate as possible. Even if I were to be able to get into a good graduate school, with my understanding at the level it is, I'd pretty much be setting myself up for failure. At this point, if I need to relearn and retake so many classes, I may as well just do the degree again and get off to the right start. I think it would be worth it to spend three years at most and get a chance to right my wrongs.

As well, doing a second degree would also allow me to change direction if I so chose. I wouldn't have to necessarily do math again, and I have been lately thinking a lot about a degree in a mathematical science, such as physics or economics, but I think that's somewhat of a digression for this post.

I would really appreciate anything anyone would be willing to say about this. Thank you all!

 

[edgepflow]

Consider a masters degree in an engineering field. This is probably worth more than a 2nd BS. You will probably need to take some upper division engineering courses.

 

[Sankaku]

I am not sure, but I suspect many schools would be puzzled if you wanted to do a second degree in the same subject as your first. Also, some have rules against gaining credit for courses you already took at another institution.

Finding a closely-related field may be the best route to getting in. You should definitely do your research first, but one option might be to apply for something like Physics or Computer Science, clean up your fundamental knowledge for a year or two, and then talk to the advisors about your next steps.

Just some thoughts...

 

[mysterytome]

I'm in the same situation, except I majored in something at school that I didn't want to do at all and wasn't able to get out before it was time to graduate. Currently I'm investigating the second bachelor's route because all of the graduate programs that will accept me with my current GPA (and no research or internships) don't have research opportunities (or even necessary facilities) in the areas I'm interested in. Most people seem to suggest that a master's degree is worth more, but to me it seems like a master's from a not-very-good program and not being able to concentrate in the areas I want would only continue to hinder my academic career. Not only that, but I'd also have to spend a year+ doing catch-up coursework while trying to pay for a master's since I won't get funded. If I do very well in the second degree I may be able to secure funding for grad school.

It seems like a reasonable option to me. There are a lot of people who say that a second bachelor's degree isn't worth it, but I haven't seen any address the points above. Many seem to be operating with the assumption that you're going to stop at the master's level and go get a job, in which case the master's would probably be a better idea if there's a program that fits your needs.

Edit: The second bachelor's degree in my case will only be 2 years. Anything longer would probably not be worth it. One year longer than the grad school catch-up (or maybe less, I don't know how long they usually delay people who switch fields for grad) and significantly improving my chances for funding and a good program seems like the best way to do it.

 

[TMFKAN64]

I think a second bachelor's degree makes sense as a restart. For example, I knew a student who was working on a BS in Physics who already had a BS in Business. He had worked for a few companies for a few years, decided he just hated accounting, and decided to do a career reset by going back to school and studying physics.

It makes much less sense if you are essentially redoing what you did the first time through though.