<p>My friend is a transfer student at University of Maryland. He already has a degree from Florida Atlantic University (computer science), but he graduated with a 3.0 GPA, so he went to UMD to do better. He’s been there for a year and so far he’s done worse. He is now considering whether to stay at UMD or go to grad school. So far he has been accepted at FAU and the University of Central Florida, but he does not want to go to either of these. He is now considering the following options:</p>
<p>1) Going back to UMD. All the classes he took last year have by some magic been wiped from his transcript.
2) Hanging out in California and taking graduate classes as a non-degree student at UC Irvine. He hopes that if he takes classes there this year, they will admit him next year. If he gets admitted, only two of the classes he takes this year will count towards a degree.
3) Other options.</p>
<p>His GRE scores are V: 640 M: 710. He has research experience at UMD and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. What should he do?</p>
<p>He wants to go to grad school and do research. His main interests are in artificial intelligence and data mining.</p>
<p>Also, all the non-research jobs he’s taken so far were unfulfilling to him, because he thought the jobs were stupid and the people at those places were incompetent.</p>
<p>He sounds like he is unmotivated and lost. I knew a guy like that. He had poor grades and wasn’t really sure of himself. He went back packing in thailand for a year. When he came back he got a 4.0 and became a mechanical engineer at Texas A&M. He said that he needed to go away to “find himself”.</p>
<p>Agree with a gap year idea. If he couldn’t get focused on doing well at UMD, I’m not sure I’d recommend graduate school until he’s really ready to continue in the academic world.</p>