<p>My initial plans was an electrician with 2 yr associates in business with hopes of one day owning my own company. I graduated high school with a 2.4 gpa by strategically failing courses to do the least amount work possible and get kicked out of honors classes by sophomore year. </p>
<p>When I got into CC I placed in basic arithmetic classes, and since I was now paying for school I decided not to be a fool and waste my money and actually take classes seriously. To my demise I ended up likely college academics a lot, especially algebra and the likes. Fast forward 3 and half years at CC I end up acing all my higher up STEM classes.</p>
<p>I am now transferring into an Engineering program for ECE at a local state Uni and because I followed their program of study so closely I ended up fulfilling all of my Gen Ed requirements at the CC and only have to take engineering classes, making it a lot easier on myself for the next 3 years because of the reduced course work compared to people that were there for the full four years.</p>
<p>Sure its going to take a lot longer to graduate but I learned a lot about myself, academia, other people in general, and just how life is; than I think most people would have if they went straight into a Uni with a good gpa. </p>
<p>In retro if I knew what college was going to be like compared to high school and how you were taught the “why” in sciences because you actually had the math skill set to derive concepts l would done high school differently…I think anyone would have though, I liked walking out of classes in high school to go to the metal shop and do peoples projects for them, so I figured the tradesmen life style was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. </p>
<p>But that’s life right? Learning from your mistakes and failures (which by the way is a hugely underrated way of learning)</p>
<p><em>Bit of a tangent from here on out, main points are done</em></p>
<p>For some reason I got higher up classes really well…I think it was because I literally had a bottom-up foundation by having to take college arithmetic and going from there…</p>
<p>The biggest thing I learned about myself though is that I learn a lot better by sitting down somewhere all by myself and reading the books and letting myself act all weird and goofy by laughing at the stuff I think about in my head rather than going to the lectures(not to say I didn’t go but not as much as most people). I didn’t know this until I hit college but I am highly introverted and I just can’t focus for a long time around people at all, it just drains me, and then the fact that I have to fake being interested in communicating with people over mundane things to keep from coming off like a snob (people unfairly judge introverts because its not a wide spread concept) and actually network (which is highly important). </p>
<p>All in all though I do not “ultimately” regret anything because of the learning experience. I feel like I’m smarter than the average bear because of my path.</p>
<p>Good luck OP</p>
<p>Might I suggest also reading topics on your own, research well renowned books on subjects, buy them , and read them.</p>
<p>Like Calculus by Spivak(Apostol if you are daring but some would say its an intro to Real Analysis book rather than a calculus text),the Feynam Lectures for physics(these are a must I feel for any Math/Eng/Physics major),anything by Gelfand for precalc type math, oh and Dover Mathematics books are a steal, they’re super cheaper and usually very light reads, terribly underrated books. </p>