My life is collapsing, I feel like killing myself. PF, me

[Saladsamurai]

Wow, you are so depressed and can't think of anything else but your grandma, and, yet, you found the time to create an account on PF and write all of this. Do I smell a troll?

Wow, this is the absolute worst use of logic I have ever seen. What does the way this person feels have to do with whether or not they start a PF account so that they have somewhere to get advice?

The only person here trolling is you since you took the time to read through this thread, hit "reply" and then proceeded to spew out the first piece of garbage that came to mind. Way to add nothing useful to the discussion.

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To the OP: As many others have stated, W's are virtually meaningless to universities unless you have multiple W's. Talk to a counselor at your school. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. In life we lose people and sometimes we are not sure how to handle it. The best way to figure out how you handle loss is probably to talk about it.

Best wishes
~Casey

 

[EnumaElish]

I was just like that when my father died. You need to grieve; the act of grief needs a conscious decision; and it has less to do with where you grieve than you grieve at all. Talk to the school counselor and/or talk to a religious person to help you with your grief.

 

[Pengwuino]

To add to what may have already been in the thread, competition is much different in college than high school. In high school, the only way you have to distinguish yourself is with SAT's and GPA. In college, you have 2 GRE's, GPA, research, letters of recommendation, summer work, and publications to distinguish yourself. To add to that, going to a big name school like MIT or Stanford for a hard science is extremely overrated unless you have no plans on going to grad school. You probably aren't even going to see such big names schools as your "#1 top dream school" for grad school, it's a lot more complicated than that for grad schools.

You seem to be stuck (for good reason) in the high school mentality that all that matters is your GPA and what hte name of your school is. If you're going into grad school in the hard sciences, it's almost night and day compared to high school. There's far less stress to be "the best" because your gpa is just a number at this level and your work ethic more naturally decides how successful you'll be.

 

[Unshin]

To add to what may have already been in the thread, competition is much different in college than high school. In high school, the only way you have to distinguish yourself is with SAT's and GPA. In college, you have 2 GRE's, GPA, research, letters of recommendation, summer work, and publications to distinguish yourself. To add to that, going to a big name school like MIT or Stanford for a hard science is extremely overrated unless you have no plans on going to grad school. You probably aren't even going to see such big names schools as your "#1 top dream school" for grad school, it's a lot more complicated than that for grad schools.

You seem to be stuck (for good reason) in the high school mentality that all that matters is your GPA and what hte name of your school is. If you're going into grad school in the hard sciences, it's almost night and day compared to high school. There's far less stress to be "the best" because your gpa is just a number at this level and your work ethic more naturally decides how successful you'll be.

Thank you, but I knew that reputation for your undergrad never matters (hence, I never really gave much thought about schoolwork and hence my poor grades). However, I do know (at least I believe I still do) that getting in a top program is important and i do know that most of the "big names" may not have the desired programs and hence will not be on my list. However, I don't want to rule them all out because I know at least one of them must intrigue me and the competition will be next to impossible unless I do pass the minimum 3.7gpa mark. I know it does depend highly only other factors, but I also know that my competitions will have just as much in their arsenal (if not greater).

 

[Jack21222]

Right so is it a step further than high school? Also these quotes are confusing, why is it a given that he will transfer etc.?

It's a given he will transfer because you cannot get into grad school with an associates degree. Did you bother to read the OP?

 

[Gregg]

It's a given he will transfer because you cannot get into grad school with an associates degree. Did you bother to read the OP?

Yes I did.

 

[jackmell]

Wow, you are so depressed and can't think of anything else but your grandma, and, yet, you found the time to create an account on PF and write all of this. Do I smell a troll?

I think the principle is sound: How might one solve this problem? I believe that takes strength and wisdom: the strength to remain healthy, and the wisdom to know and understand life is often painful. Yesterday I saw something terrible that happened to someone (on TV). Just awful. My petty complaints about cleaning the back of my shed pale in comparison to that person and others I've seen with much, much worst problems than me. Face your problems, deal with them, remain strong and healthy and emerge from them with the wisdom they bring to you so that you can face other challenges that life will inevitably bring your way. Start to exercise. It is very cathartic. Just try and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Quantum-lept]

Unshin, maybe you should consider taking a semester or more off and going out into the real world, work, travel, meet people who have "real problems", and develop a more realistic world view, one not so self-centered.

Sorry about your grandma, but old people have been know to die. Do what you need to do to grieve, there is no right way or wrong way. DON'T make any BIG decisions if you are extremely upset!..Most decisions can wait. Even school can wait awhile!

Learn how to think, how to put things in perspective, and how to ride out the low, scary parts of life. Sometimes life is holding on for a few minutes at a time till circumstances change. And things do change, they get better or worse, but then they change again!

The best thing you could probably do right now is get OFF the damn computer, and do something very physical. Walk!, Jog!, Surf!, Sail!..Get a job in construction!

 

[Troponin]

Focus on your family and mourn the loss of someone close to you.

It won't seem like it now, but there will be a time in the future where you'll barely remember your first year of college and will remember even less about this class, but you won't forget about losing someone close to you.

There are thousands of people every year who miss their first year of college for one reason or another and there are many more people that will take a "W" at some point in their college career, so (although it may be hard now) try to look at things in perspective.

I don't know if it will help you or not, but you might want to have a look at some of the famous physicists who had to delay their first year of college for one reason or another, and for reasons less traumatic than losing someone so close to you.

Oppenheimer is one example off the top of my head.

 

[Centaur]

I hate that everything is so marks orientated. In my school we have a thing called the top 10, which is the 10 children with the highest marks, no matter what subjects they do, of every grade.

I wonder why there are always these children who get such high marks while the norm of the good children get above the average.

In my class there is a girl who gets 90s for everything, but she is as white as a ghost and drinks energy sachets in the morning. She wants to go into a science field, but she has no passion at all for anything science.

Oh, and Linus Pauling is also a good example of institutes not wanting him and going through lots of tragedies, but won a Nobel prize in Chemistry and for Peace later in his life.

 

[Tedjn]

Unshin, my condolences for your loss. Let's be more concrete. What expectations do you have for your future? It sounds like you're afraid of the competition. That's reasonable, but what are you competing for? A job in some area? Graduate school in some field? A top graduate school or a decent one? If you take a step back, you'll realize that there's competition, but there's also opportunity. Plenty of it.

 

[twofish-quant]

What would the police do? Arrest him for attempting suicide?

If you are a danger to yourself or others, the police can involuntarily admit you into a hospital where they can keep you for a few days. I've known enough people that have killed themselves in college, that I err on the side of taking this sort of thing pretty seriously.

 

[Dickfore]

Since there is clearly no freedom of opinion on these fora that differs from the mods', I will refrain from writing in this thread anymore.

 

[kscribble]

You need to change yourself...

In my opinion, most of my classmates suffer from caring SOOOOoooo much about their grades. It's really the least important thing. If you KNOW you can do something, and you did it to the best of your ability, it doesn't matter what grade you got.

For example: those stupid mistakes that you made on the test, who gives a crap? You even conceded to those being "silly" mistakes, so why should it matter if you would have gotten it right?

Just stop caring about what your grades are as much. Sure it's bad to completely not care, but when you know that you can do something, your teachers can see through that sometimes (unless they have a lot of students) and with brain maturity, those mistakes will go away.