Need academic guidance

[Padawan]

Hello all,

I am a new poster to the forum but have been reading some great threads on Beyond for a while. I guess you can say I'm a long time listener first time caller.:D
Well today I am in need of advice from Beyond because right now I am at a dilemma. I took an Engineering course at SAIT right after high school, not knowing 100% that I would be into it. Unfortunately, up until the first week I knew that this wasn't for me, but I didn't want to quit and give up, so I decided to tough it out for the two years. Well second semester rolled around and I felt very unsure about the program. Having my doubts about myself being 100% interested and wanting to do this as a career, I've come to a realization that this is not what I want to be doing.

So right now I've been looking into some other courses or perhaps taking some time off to myself to figure out what I really want to do. Basically I've been looking into transferring out of SAIT and into U of C for Business. I have done some reading on the Campus forums of Beyond as well as word of mouth and heard some good things about Haskayne.

What I hope that the community of Beyond can help me with is first hand experience or knowledge about my situation. If transferring into Haskayne will they take my GPA of SAIT or will they take my high school mark still? If I were to go to upgrade will they take that mark for me to be considered into Haskayne? My GPA from SAIT hasn't been that great, as the motivation for a program I disliked was not there. If you guys have any advice about the best way I should go about doing this then it would be greatly appreciated. Or any advice on just withdrawing from my program and applying for a University or MRC program, what would you guys best recommend if having an average GPA in SAIT will hinder your chances? Also I know many of you Beyonders are in Haskayne. If you could extend some knowledge about the program, or how you feel about it, would be great hearing it from a person whose experienced it or is on the threshold of going there. I will be making calls to the U of C and asking questions, but I find that people who have first hand experience often have the full 360 degrees.

My other option is to push through until next year finishing the program, meaning I would have to take summer school because if I want to get into an option I prefer, I would have to get better marks for some subjects I am currently failing:(. That would mean investing more money into the already swelling pile of debt accumulated from my student loans:banghead:. Any suggestions right now would be greatly appreciated. I feel so lost, but then again I’m just like many other hundreds of thousands of teenagers out there:).

Right now I have no idea what I truly want to do with my life, but I know I want to be an upstanding member of society! If any of you older fellers have any insight as to how you went about finding your own path as a teenager, to the career you have chosen and professed in now, it would be great to hear!
I'm not sure what's worse, not knowing what you want to do at a young age or not knowing if what you are doing at an older age is right for you. (Enter reference to 403Gemini's thread about Growing up too fast.:devil: )

Thank you very much to all who read (I know it's long) and many thanks in advanced for the advice.

[method]

Transcripts include grades from any other academic institution that you've attended. If you're in danger of bringing your grades even lower, better to cut your losses and withdraw. Still, neither is going to look good on a transcript.

I'd say go out and work full time. Transferring directly might land you in the same position and further in debt.

[SaturnV]

I can't really help you too much, I haven't even figured out some of your questions for myself yet.

First, welcome to Beyond, I don't post a lot either (22 posts that count since 2006 :rofl: ), but this is a great community and source of local information.

Second, just the fact that you can write with capitalization, periods and paragraphs puts you far ahead of quite a few of the university students I know. :thumbsup:

Transfer rules and averages for the U of C are here (http://www.ucalgary.ca/admissions/competitive_admission_avg).

I think method is on the right track. Do you live at home or on your own? It may be helpful to get out there and see what jobs are available. That may give you a good idea about what you really want to do, or an idea about what you really don't want to do.

[msommers]

Welcome my young Padawan (har har har),

I'm glad you've figured out what you don't like already, instead of wasting more money and time thinking that things will change.

As for business, there are many programs that fall under that name. You mention you want to do business. Does that mean Finance, Accounting, Marketing....

But at least you think you'll like business. Do you know anyone in O&G or in a large business? If so, I would suggest that you ask whomever you know about coming in to job-shadow; get a feel for what people are actually doing instead of some bogus first year course that is boring as fuck.

[brown911]

Its likely they will only look at your SAIT grades, because I am sure you have already exceeded the limit of 8 half courses. With that being said, Haskayne is a very good school for business, but with the way you explained your current situation as far as GPA and whatnot go, I doubt you will have much luck in transferring over to the U.

Is there not a 2-3 year program at SAIT for accounting/marketing? Other than that, I think your best bet would be going to MRC (they will be a University soon, if you enroll now, or anytime before they become a full fledged University, your degree or even when you transfer will be credited as being completed at a University.)

From there, if you really want to go to Haskayne, you could transfer from MRC to the UofC.

Either way, like you said tons of people from highschool blindly go into university thinking one thing, and at the end of first year they either come out with horrible grades/drop out because they are simply not ready for post seconday, or have lost complete interest in the faculty they are in and end goal they were hoping for.

Also, the courses you take in University, especially in years 1 and 2, are not really what you would be dealing with or doing once you have completed your degree and are actually out in workforce.

If I were you (assuming you do not have overbearing parents, or unrealistic expectations to live up to), I would withdraw, spend the summer working, and do various job shadows in a variety of places to see how I like things. Once you know what you want to be, figure out which program/faculty/school you need to be in to accomplish it, and go from there.

The biggest thing is to not beat your self up over the past, everyone makes mistakes, your still young, and it doesn't matter if people who you graduated High School with will be going into their third or fourth year, while you are basically starting all over again. In the grand scheme of things, 1 or 2 years are not that big of a deal.

The best advice I got was talking to an academic counselor at the UofC admissions office (make an appointment), she laid everything out for me, told me what was needed to become what I want, and showed me my options as far as transferring from MRC --> UofC went, or from transferring faculties, the grades I would need, the classes that were transferable and basically everything I needed to know.

GL buddy.


*edit*
Woah... I just looked at the grades you need out of HS to get into a faculty at the UofC and the transfer GPA requirements, everything has gone down and dropped quite a bit since I was applying (2005). I needed a minimum of 84% from HS to get into Biological Sciences, and I barely got in with my 86. However last year, in 2008 the average was 79. Quite a drop, also the transfer GPAs used to all be 2.9 - 3.2. Now its sitting at 2.5 ...

Pretty suprised to see a drop in requirements by that much over just a 3 year span, guess less and less people are going to University nowadays.