Thread: HELP: Need College Advice

Here is the situation ladies and gents.

As many of you know, I am working on deciding which college I am going to attend. At first, I really wanted to go to George Washington University or the University of Southern California. I also applied to the University of California at Los Angeles, Irvine, and Berkeley, as well as the University of New Orleans. As an afterthought to satisfy the requirements for five schools on my Naval ROTC application, I applied to Texas A&M.

I initially applied to all the schools for Civil or Computer Engineering, with Architecture as a second choice (Biomedical engineering is my second choice at GW), with the exception of the University of New Orleans, where I applied for their Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Program. I was quickly accepted to the University of New Orleans and received my acceptance to Texas A&M about a month ago. After learning more about the two, I started losing interest in UNO and started falling in love with Texas A&M.

Then as I was thinking to myself one night as I tried to fall asleep (which often takes me a long time) what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I arrived at a startling and horrifying conclusion: Engineering is probably not the thing for me. I have wanted to do something with engineering for a very long time, and to suddenly get myself to realize it is not where I wanted to go in my life has seriously thrown me for a loop.

With that realization, I quickly changed my major at Texas A&M to undecided, with the intention of transferring into the Mays Business School with a major in finance after the first semester. A&M offers some very nice business programs that I am extremely interested in and that will allow me a variety of options once I graduate. It appears that I will also be able to join their honors business program after the first semester, allowing me to double major.

Last week I received news that I had been expecting; my application for admission to UCLA and UCI was denied, probably because I haven't taken a fine arts credit. It seems that my assumption that taking five science credits, four of them with labs, and four math credits was a better choice than 'wasting time' on singing or drawing flowers was wrong. I anticipate that Berkeley will tell me the same thing tomorrow night when they post decisions.

I am still waiting on a decision from USC, and the more I think about it, I am not sure USC is the place I want to go.

All this seemed to reinforce my feelings that Texas A&M was the right place for me, until I received some very unexpected news tonight.

George Washington University in Washington D.C. apparently thinks that I am good enough; I just received my acceptance to GW.

GW was originally my first choice school. I love the Washington D.C. area, love that there is so much to do and see, and love that there are approximately two internships for every GW students. It is also extremely easy to change majors; I will probably change to some type of business major. What I don't love, is that GW is around $50,000 a year with room and board. That is almost $20,000 more than A&M, since I am not a resident of Texas.


So here is the big question: How do I decide?

GW was originally my first choice school. I love the Washington D.C. area, love that there is so much to do and see, and love that there are approximately two internships for every GW students. It is also extremely easy to change majors; I will probably change to some type of business major. What I don't love, is that GW is around $50,000 a year with room and board. That is almost $20,000 more than A&M, since I am not a resident of Texas.

Can you explain to us how you intend to pay for college? Do you live in Texas? If you live in Texas and your not independently wealthy -goto A&M. Wherever you live - go to school in that state and save you parents the out of state fees. I think it is foolish to pay a $30K premium just to go to GW over any "reasonable" university. That translates into $120K-$150K in additional cost for a degree that will leave you with high student loan payments. I would hate to see you spend that kind of money.

Here is a little detail about a college degree that no one tells you about: "After that 1st or 2nd job, the only person that really cares where you went to school is the HR person screening your resumes.. and all they care about is did you graduate and is it an accreditated school." People focus on work experience more than anything else. That degree gets your in the door when your first starting out. It is the type of work experience you get that drives the money.

To further comment on shatters post...

in the business world especially. I have 2 degrees, do they do anything for me? nah, i always say school got in the way of my education. It helps you with your first corporate monkey job, after that, as shatter stated, they could give 2 shits what school you went too, they want EXPERIENCE. If you're seriously straying away from engineering, and steering towards business, get to a school that teaches and incorporates real world workshops/scenarios into the class. Don't go for the ones that teach you history of technology, you're NOT going to use a punch card machine anymore, who gives a shit how they worked and the pain in the ass they are. You want hands on experience and one that is looked at by major corporations during job fairs. Check the graduating class job offers and check the prestige of companies hiring these graduates.

Sorry you lost interest in UNO...we coulda hung out!

If you have any questions about A&M I can definitely answer them for you. I absolutely love the school it has a friendly atmosphere, the academics are great, its affordable, and there are so many organizations and ways to get involved in the university. If you want to do a Naval ROTC thing I'm pretty sure there are many ways to go about that at A&M and they help out with finances. Also, changing your major is not that difficult at A&M, I know plenty of people that have done it 4 or 5 times. Good luck making your decision and I hope you find the right college that fits you.

Hey wilecyte, thanks for finding that for me. After looking at that, and taking a look at US News & World Reports info, I think I am going to go to A&M.

Sorry GW, you just didn't have a country song like Texas A&M.

A&M is a good school. Here in Houston and the surround area the 4 schools you hear about are:

A&M
UT
Tech Tech
OU

..and of course UH