I grew up in an ultra orthodox Jewish community and attended a high school where we had only 3 years of “secular studies”. We had next to no English, science, or history, and math only up to basic geometry. The rabbis there brainwashed us into thinking that college, and secular studies as a whole, are a waste of time. Throughout my years in there I never thought about going to college and like almost every student did not take any of the classes seriously. All of the classes except for math were basically jokes anyway. History was spent doing world war two cross word puzzles and word finds, and “science class” was the teacher showing episodes of Mythbusters. During my senior year there were no secular studies, just religious studies from 8 am - 10 pm.
After high school, almost all boys in my community attend 3-5 years of “Beit Medrash” where they learn only ancient Jewish texts. During my first year, I decided that I wanted to be an engineer and started studying for the SAT at a local library without anyone knowing. Most of the time was spent teaching myself almost all of high school from scratch using websites like Khan Academy. At the end of the school year, I did not feel confident enough to take the test and missed the deadlines. Over the summer my mother convinced me to apply to a religious college which was easy to get into with a bad High school transcript and no SAT. When I told my dad that I got in he disappointingly told me “you got your way”. This school had evening classes in which some people attended religious school or worked in the mornings so I continued in the same religious school and commuted twice a week to classes. This school did not have an engineering department so I compromised and took computer science classes. The first semester went pretty well except for one class that I failed.
After that semester I transferred to another branch of the college where it was a full-time program with religious classes in the morning and secular classes in the evening. That school had a Pre-Engineering program in which they offered physics, chemistry, and advanced math courses. Students in that program are expected to transfer after 4 semesters to a regular engineering program. Over a holiday break I got into a big fight with my dad, he did not like the fact that I was going to college and suspected that I didn’t want to be religious anymore. It even got physical at one point and he threatened to kick me out of the house. I drove back to college and did not come home until the end of the semester. I slipped into a really bad state of depression and nearly failed almost all my classes. My dad has since come around and we now have a good relationship where he respects the direction I am taking.
Now I am stuck in a school I don’t want want to graduate from with a bad GPA (2.14), no SAT or ACT, and a high school transcript that makes no sense. This semester I am continuing to take engineering related classes and hope to transfer Fall 2018. I want to know what would be the best advice to take moving forward.
