Whats up, i play semipro soccer, and I kind of quit college after 2 years of struggle on math and science but winning championships on the soccer field at the same time. My dad is a lawyer so he wants me to go back to school really bad. My problem is that I fall sleep on science classes unless there is a hot women there, and I cant never figurate out written math problems... most of my friends are soccer players and party animals, so I am really not that much of a book kind of guy, but I am trying to find my way back to school, i bough some trygonometry books already and some chemestry things also... calculus and physics seen almost impossible for me to learn. Also I have to find out about loans and scholarships and stuff. Any advices? Any help will be very appreciated. Thanks.
Figure out a reason why you want to go to and graduate from college other than "my dad wants me there." If you can't find such a reason, you probably shouldn't go. As long as you're there for someone else, you're not going to get much out of it, and you're probably not going to find something that you care about.
I would spend a few months making a list of occupations you are interested in, find schools that offer programs leading to those on the list, and then determine what the requirements are for each. Weigh the options based upon the available information, your dad will at least respect you for that.
Two good answers so far. I have a question: why were you studying math and science if you don't like it? Who told you to take physics and calculus?
One thing you will want to do is fill out a Federal Application for Student Aid... http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ Then have the results sent to the academic institutions in which you are interested... From there you will know more about what low interest loans etc. you are eligible for. By the way, it requires some rather detailed information, mainly from tax returns, but you can save it when you don't know some particular information and come back later.
Im going to try to answer most of the quetiions. Even though I really dont want to talk about soccer this time bc thats all I do and I know... just so you know where this comes from, I was a "soccer stud" in high school, i think thats how you guys say that. 3 years in a US high school, 1 year moslty just learning the language. 2 Other years partying and practicing hard on the soccer field. I scored 600 on the SAT so I could not make it into a public school, and idiotically i turn down offers from private schools for thinking i was a big shot and wanting to play soccer at a D1 school. Well 2 first semester of community college went good, there was not soccer team so I was playing first division on an amateur league, after that, I faced reality. I couldnt even pass bio101, and I had to drop pshycology bc i was loss in class. I was thinking about going to business school but i couldnt even pass math110, and my pressure was always on the soccer field... never had real soccer contacts so I came here to California to live with some people i know and play semi-pro. Business school was my step fathers choice but he is always traveling so I never really see him, and my father told me to go to law school in El Salvador... but my stepfather keeps telling me how good it will be for me to get a degree here in the US, and what a wonderful country this is. Chances of me going pro are very low now, with me injured and getting old for not having the right information of USL, ODP or college or anything on US soccer, so i guess now I just want to focuse on school, but im living on my own now and i dont want help from my step father bc i dont really like him. So here is what i always wanted to, work on radio station or tv as a broadcaster, or get a law degree bc my father was always a role model for me even though i never lived with him. So thats basically my story, im on my own now trying to get a degree in law or communication, and maybe I can be a soccer coach later after im done with school. Idk I guess after 6 months living on my own its been tough... I never though I was gone have to stop partying with hot girls, and hanging with the "Gs" and all the stuff I did since middle school to high school. So i guess Ill have to go with tips, Im an "out of state" student now so I have to wait another 6 months to go back to school, otherwise it would be too expensive, so can I apply for financial aid now??? Im thinking on UCLA although I know is tough to get in, and just a school that is close to the beach so it will fit my life style. Ok, thanks for you help, and again any tips or advices would be appreciated.
Can't really help you man. You should find a mentor or something like that. Someone who is older and has been there and done that, that has really helped me although I have never been quite in your situation. What I would say is that maybe you should get into a school and go into education and perhaps be a teacher/coach? That seems to be the best route for you, is there ANY subject that interests you in the least that you might like to help kids learn one day whilst you, mainly, coach soccer?
Why do you want a Bachelor's degree so badly for? Nowadays, a degree ain't worth the paper that it's printed on. Really if you've never been a good student, you'll probably not get much out of college anyways. It's take a lot of initiatives to succeed in college. My advice is to talk to career counselors and find out what areas of employment are in-demand and if you have any interest in any one of them, then make a decision to train for it. The job u want might demand a Bachelor's or maybe just an associate's. Don't go to college just to get a piece of paper.
Step number one is for you to talk to an admissions counselor at UCLA or any other school you think you want to get into. You need to find out what will make you a competitive applicant. You can get in touch with one by calling the admissions office. My guess is you'll end up having to do something like demonstrating the ability to make a semester or 2 of nothing but A's and B's at a community college before you have a shot at a four year school. In the process of finding out if and how it's possible for you to get into a good 4 year school, you have to answer the question needs raised: why do you want to go? Don't just think in terms of law school or other professions that will happen AFTER undergraduate school, if they happen at all. Think about what it is you like to do, what you're interested in and if the schools you're aiming at will allow you to do it. If you can't find anything in the school that interests you, then it's going to be tough to do well enough to get into law school afterwards. In fact, it sounds like you ran into trouble precisely because you were taking things like calculus for B-school, and you either weren't sufficiently prepared for them or weren't interested, or both. If you just go back to school thinking vaguely about law school without considering what you need to do during the 4 years it's going to take you to complete your undergraduate degree in the meantime, then it's very likely the same thing will happen all over again. The other thing you need to recognize is that going to a first or second tier school, and UCLA is one of these, requires the equivalent of a 40 hour per week job. If you're not spending that much time on your classes then the chances are high that you'll crash and burn again. And the students that are working hard enough to get into competitive professional schools, like law, are usually spending more time than that, especially given the extracurricular activities (like community service) these schools expect to see, on top of good grades. So you need to lay the groundwork for a good decision before you move back into college. Use the community college work to sort out what matters to you first, then find a 4 year school that will allow you to go after that.
What about less scientific degrees? History, sociology, something like that, involves more reading I admit, but there has to be other interests for you other than soccer and women. Otherwise you shouldn't go to college anyways.
reading your posts, it quickly comes across that English is still a foreign language to you. you communicate clearly enough, but your spelling and grammar are those of someone who doesn't have a lot of academic polish. that isn't meant as criticism, just a basic observation. when a person gets to the university level, being fluent in the language of instruction is pretty much a necessity. if you started learning English in highschool, you still are probably a few years from being academically fluent in English. you can speak it and maybe read it well enough to get by most of the time, but i'm thinking that sometimes English is still a bit of a puzzle to you. you haven't said why ( if you know why ) college courses were beyond you. since your dad is a lawyer, it stands to reason that you are bright enough, though being a lawyer may not require the academic skill that being an engineer or doctor does. so did you fail in college because you wouldn't put forth the effort to pass the classes? when it got tough, did you go out with your soccer buddies rather than seek out someone to study with? if you got thru highschool by being able to absorb enough material to pass the tests without much outside effort, and you never learned how to study, then the first step in becoming a college student who can cut it is to learn how to discipline yourself. maybe you just are not the academic type and you should consider a career as a salesman or learn a good trade. those are decisions that someone can help you make, but it will require a bit of courage and willingness to be honest with yourself. i notice that you said that you wanted to go to UCLA because it would fit in with your lifestyle. that statement says a lot about your priorities. maybe you need new priorities.
Learning English is important just to be able to get a decent job outside any Hispanic enclave in the US, but its vital if you really want to go to college. Although alot of my grades were good in school, I had a long record for trauncy and fighting and other more serious things, and with all my high school and travel MVP awards, having played semi-pro and gone to Europe I wasn`t getting anywhere near a college. I went to Mexico, but didn`t finish because I wanted to start playing before I got too old, and my Spanish was really bad when I got there, I understood it well enough but as far as conversing just ghetto slang they talk on the streets of California and Florida. I really had to get down, and study and learn the language good before I could even start studying, many people born raised in Latin America can`t talk it good enough to be in a University. One thing I did was to immerse myself around people that just spoke Spanish, and not hang around the Chicano students, and lower-class people on the street that use bad grammar, that way I would learn it by force, and I did, in only a few months. Another was to watch TV in Spanish, and read everything in Spanish and translate it. If you put your self to it, and can learn English it`ll open up alot of doors for you, including studying.
@ Royalstilton: It may be though that his english is not good here at BS because he does not really concentrate when he writes (at least that's the case with the English I write here. My Bigsoccer English is far more Germanized than my Academic text English. Just adding that, doesn't falsify the rest of your statement of course.
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Thanks everybody, for the help. I will have to figurate out whats best for me. My Spanish is almost perfect, but my english is not , and I still have an accent, and sometimes I get loss when I talk to people that speaks English as their first language. I can carry a soccer conversation, or I can talk to girls all day long in english but when it comes to math or physic and stuff like that, I cant concentrate and I get loss in the conversation, o yeah I can talk sports and about socializing all day long too. As far as college english, I already passed the toughest classes, I think. I wrote this paper of 10 pages about Shakespeer like 10 times till I got right. My english proffesor told me that I could make my points, and that my understanding of the language was good for a foreigner. I only watch tv in english, that helps a lot, the only time I watch something in spanish is a boca, madrid or aguila game on goltv. I've talk to my step-dad about going for history or spanish or something I enjoy and I would easily pass. But then comes the big argument that I'm used to live good, I like the beach, I like hot women and fancy things, so a little carrear like that wouldnt afford my lifestyle. The thing is that my mom comes from a working class family that become business owner with years of hard work... our business went down so we've been struggling lately in the ecomic side, my two brothers are on schoool with loans and stuff like that, I never really though I was going to ever need to work and to think of money as something important in life... Then I have the pressure of my dad that I never lived with and that calls me every now and then, telling me about Law school, he happens to be this one great intelectual, college proffesor in El Salvador, a well respected lawyer. My mom always tell me how Im prob smarter than my dad, that really mess things up bc now I have to live with the pressure of me being the "brighets" in the familiy and that if something big is going to happen.. it has to be me, I hate that! My dad told me "if you play soccer, make sure you play for the best, dont play with some mediocre team" while my step father is American, so he keeps telling me that I have a "great" furute in business, to forget about soccer. There is one more thing I dont like to say bc is matter of pride I dont like when people feel sorry for me, I was just not raised that way, my dad always telling me that "man dont cry, man work and work, and dont complain about anything" so I always have to keep things in mind and dont even think about trying to get help. I do have the pressure of my family that they expect me to be a Lawyer or a great business man but then, I cant quite soccer, is like a freaking ego thing, the more I play, the better I feel about myself... soccer is just something special for me, I cant help it. People keeps telling me of how a great future I have as a business guy, as a lawyer, but I keep telling them that is not easy when you live in a country that is not yours, is just not easy to walk to an LA corporation station or to a Bank and tell them, "hey im Salvadoran, I have many soccer recognitions but I failed college" Im working a part time at Hollisters right now which I enjoy, a lot of good lookin girls in there, but i dont want to be a "male model" that would just hurt my reputation. Sometimes I just wish my dad was just an average guy, and I never won state championships in soccer, so I could actually lower my standards and just be a regular guy. Im honestly thinking, communications, then Law, I just dont know how Im going to make it happen, since my step dad keeps tellin me that UCLA is the best for me (he got his engenieerin degree at UCLA) and I always get calls from semi-pro teams about going back to the soccer fields... is tough... What kind of math do I need to graduate in college? the last one I falied was math 110, we were doing integrals or something like that. about science I just have to read more, and get some science friends I think, i cant even remember the last time I had a conversation with someone that knew what a molecula is... im always arround soccer players that dont go to college, and all we do is just talk crap about how good we are, and make fun of everyone else... is bad i guess. I want to be a Lawyer and a soccer coach, is that possible? Im still talking to some people about going to play pro soccer, but again, f.. i dont want to move out of california, i love california, and nah i cant imaging myself being a foreginer again living in another country. The only real chance I see is to go to play for Aguila, the team i grew up playing for, I love that club, but again, Ill have to give up all the hard work I did in my "americanizing" era. Being young and stupid, huh??? I will do my best to finish school, and I will still love soccer.
You probably don't need anything beyond basic math and science (eg Algebra, Statistics, maybe pre-cal for math, and then bio, chem, and physics for science) if you want to graduate with a humanities degree. But I would warn you about majoring in communications, since it's a highly general degree that really isn't useful (my Mom works in the communications field and she says comm majors are unimpressive). One possibility is that you could teach Spanish at a high school and then coach soccer. I can tell you that demand is extremely high for foreign language teachers in high school. You would probably need to work on your English though, but if you continue living in the US, that shouldn't be a problem.