I have been considering this question over the past three months, and the more I think about it the more confused I am. To make things worse, the more confused I am the more I want to think about it, and now I have this monstrous problem whirling around in my head. So please help me set it to rest and I will be forever grateful to you.
Here is my current situation:
I will be a fourth year this fall at a good state school. It is no Ivy League, but it is in the top 10 public schools. I like it.
Thanks to a nifty scholarship I will graduate debt free.
I am a double major in Applied Mathematics and Chinese. I have learned that saying your a chinese major means nothing. I have a few fellow chinese majors that would be hard pressed to hold a basic conversation. I was lucky enough to discover that actually learning a language requires much more than learning it for a class. I would say my reading, writing, and speaking skills are all around the advanced - low level (low modifying advanced).
My GPA is a 3.89
Decent grades, decent school, decent skill set, what’s the problem? The problem is that I have irrevocably screwed up. Now don’t judge what I am about to say until you have read the whole post. I realized the one thing that I actually want to do is not something I have any hope of doing.
I want to be a… (don’t you laugh!) Physicist.
This is no result of physics pop culture, its a result of restoration of self. For as long as I can remember I LOVED science. If you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew, up the answer was scientist. I have the kindergarten work sheets to prove it. By my first year of high-school I realized that I wanted to be a physicist. My parents were concerned, they didn’t think that was a “real” job. I didn’t care. I had absolutely no doubts that I would go to college, grad school, and then become a professor ( high-school me wasn’t aware of the postdoc step). But then my first semester of college happened.
It wasn’t sex, drugs, or parties that got me off track. It was realizing that I could be out in the real world , making a difference, in four years instead of seven. At the root of all my goals was the desire to contribute something to this world before I died. I changed my major to Applied Maths which I thought would give me a more general tool base for problem solving, picked up a language, and never looked back…until now.
I am currently spending the summer in Taiwan studying and I live by myself. It gives me a lot of time for introspection, and to really find out what I want. Unfortunately I realized that I am pretty far off the mark. Some of you might be thinking " Come on charmp just change your major back, take a few extra years to graduate - no problem!". Right , of course, except there are a few HUGE problems. Let me explain:
Throughout all of this I have been , at heart, a physics nerd. I have filled my free electives with physics classes. I have taken your standard Physics I, Physics II, Modern Physics, and Classical Mechanics. I did well enough, receiving all A’s and one B. However, I didn’t learn the material like I should have if I wanted to be a physicist. I didn’t take the time to play with the ideas and equations. I didn’t become nearly as comfortable with the basics as I wanted. These were free electives, I didn’t prioritize them, and in the end I did the equivalent to what a lof of my friends did when learning chinese. I learned physics for the class, not for me. I Cannot retake the classes at my college, and I refuse to take more advanced classes until I have this base down packed.
“OH your Just being stubborn Charmp!”
Yes, Yes I am. I know how my brain works, and I am telling you for a fact that If I do not start from scratch and work my way back up - I will NEVER make the contribution that I want to give the scientific community. Furthermore, I am not too impressed with my schools physics department. If I am going to do this, I want to do it completely correctly. So here is my question to you :
What is my best course of action to get admitted to a college with a top-notch undergraduate physics program. Is this even possible? Should I take a few years off to make money to pay for my re-education, and obtain some real world achievements? I am absolutely dedicated to this idea, but I have no clue how to do it. Am I completely screwed ? Sorry for the long post.
TL;DR Plans after graduation - go back to school. Help.