physics major on the verge of dropping out

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DannyDevito
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Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 4:32 am

physics major on the verge of dropping out

Post by DannyDevito » Sat Nov 20, 2010 1:32 am

I'd like to topic to be deleted. Thanks
Last edited by DannyDevito on Sun Dec 05, 2010 6:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

CarlBrannen
Posts: 381
Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 11:34 pm

Re: 17 yr. junior physics major on the verge of dropping out

Post by CarlBrannen » Sat Nov 20, 2010 12:25 pm

The cool thing about the United States is that it is The Land of Second Chances.

And the piece of advice I regularly give youth is that in life you have two options. You can work very hard at one thing or another (doesn't really matter what, could be trying to be the best ever sports fan of the local baseball team), or you can be miserable. This is because of the basic human necessity to struggle. Modern technology makes life too easy so we have to find our own struggles. For an interesting take on this, particularly in the context of what happens to really smart people who drift too much towards slackerness, see the Unabomber Manifesto:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Industria ... activities

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grae313
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Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 8:46 pm

Re: 17 yr. junior physics major on the verge of dropping out

Post by grae313 » Sun Nov 21, 2010 7:41 pm

I was 17 when I flunked out too :) So even though you're technically a junior, you're still not really behind. Don't worry about your overall gpa. If you do well in all of your upper division physics classes and show a consistency in your efforts for a sustained period, your previous work will be disregarded after you explain yourself in your SOP.

Motivation is hard for some of us and you'll need to set both long and short term goals for yourself and focus on them daily. Pace yourself and make sure you have enough time and energy to not just get through a class, but to really absorb the material because you'll need to know it in years to come. You can do it, but you'll need at least two or three years of solid grades to show you've really changed.

One of the most important lessons for me to learn was that people care about grades not because they're supposed to show how smart you are, but because they show how mature you are.



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