School Selection: Making the Right Choice for Me

[Pyrosu]

Its my first time here. Please go easy on me.


So I've been going to Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix, Arizona for about four months now. It is a good school when one puts forward a great deal of effort to learn things, but lately I've been getting the feeling that this isn't the way that I want to go in the automotive industry.

I have decided that I really want to work towards an engineering degree now (Mechanical, to be specific). However, the problem is that I'm not sure about what to do at this point in time. I'm 18 right now. I started the trade school as soon as I finished high school, and I'm really worried about looking back at this years from now and regretting that I didn't take the chance to go further than I did into going toward a more rewarding career. I have come across amazing amounts of the automotive industry that I learn about, and instantly think of all sorts of crazy ways to solve various efficiency and such problems. In fact, I keep a full notebook of ideas that pop into my head every time I stop to think about something I have learned, however I lack the knowledge to develop any of them fully.


With that said, my dillema is this:
I've paid a visit to a school counselor to ask him how much I would owe to the school if I had left at this point in time. The total is around $7,000. I don't know much about the prerequisites to begin classes towards a mechanical engineering degree, but I do know that I ended high school at a precalculus level and no physics or chemistry classes whatsoever. My thought is that these will have to be made up later, however I am not sure.
Total tuition at UTI will end up being 32,500, and end in april of 2007. I have been presented with a couple choices:
·Finish UTI and go on to attend an institution that accepts credits from this school (there are very few of these. The one I was presented with was Ferris State University in Michigan.)
·Finish school at UTI, and then go through a full program towards an engineering degree at a different school (I am very interested in MIT, but know little about the establishment itself).
·Drop the classes now, as soon as possible, and pursue the full program right now.

It is hard to explain, but I feel that I am learning a great deal at my current school because of how much I am applying toward learning the material. However, I don't feel that it would be good on my wallet to finish here and pursue a full stay towards an engineering degree at another school.

I have been following this forum along with other related forums for a long time and I love every bit of reading that I do here. So, I'm under the assumption that you guys are the experts. I'm sorry this is so long, but I feel very strongly about it and hope to get all the information and opinions that I can.

Also, if anybody knows anything about Ferris State University, I would like to know more about it as I currently have no review or anything of the sort to go by.

 

[mathwonk]

I loved your first sentence. To me it does not matter where you go to school, but what matters is how you apply yourself when there.that said, you do need to be at a school that supports your goals.

I would pay up and get out of there tout suite and get in a school offering the degree you really want.

you have to have the love to finish a hard program, and you have lost it for the program you are in now.

it is too limiting and life is too short to spend any more time there in my opinion.

just one mans opinion. finish the year of course or maybe just the semester.good luck,

mathwonk.PS: I went to a great school and goofed off and learned almost zip, then worked a while and went back to an up and coming state school, and worked even harder and became the great sage I am today (apologies to Dead Poets society).

 

[Pyrosu]

Thank you for the reply!

I have and will continue to consider the action of dropping what I'm doing now and looking toward greater things, however I am still a bit hesitant to do so because:

· I have no real idea of what it will take at this position, having next to nothing toward credits, to begin building up toward this degree.

and

· I do enjoy the school that I am going to now, and the information I am gathering from it. The thought of being able to finish up here and then be dropped straight into a school only requiring two more years of credits to obtain a degree is, while a bit suspicious, also very appealing.

I suppose it would come down to what kind of education FSU has to offer in this category, as I have no idea what kind of a school it is at this time. Though it does sound nice, once again, it does seem a bit shady to me that this school would be able to offer a perfectly valid degree with all of the core courses already bypassed. However, as I have already said, I have no experience with any of this.

Anyone else know anything that would help?