If you max out on Stafford, you start taking out Grad Plus loans instead, so it's not like you will have zero loan options.
What's more concerning is your lackadaisical attitude towards your past academic career and the fact that your father is paying off $30,000 worth of your mistakes.
As it should be concerning. I enjoyed undergrad, did terribly on the MCAT and "settled" for graduate school. I really liked taking classes. I enjoyed learning new things. I found it a challenge to learn new things. I know right... ****ing weird kid.
I had severe ADHD all throughout college, and, as you pointed out, I was lazy and never went in for a diagnosis. I did terribly on some tests. It's actually a rather fitting copout, because if you look at my grades, you will see a specific cluster of grades.
I ended up with (I acutally spent 5 years in undergrad getting two degrees because after my 4th year I didn't want to leave accumulating ~ 177 credit hours).
I had
23 A's
3 A-'s
8 B+'s
14 B's
3 B-'s
2 C+'s
1 C
There was a very specific paramater that seperated low grades (B's) from high grades (A's). That was whether or not the teacher threw small curveballs intended to trick us. Usually on the multiple choice tests, they would ask something like .... "BLAH BLAH BLAH
NOT BLAH BLAH ?" I would constantly miss crap like that (symptom of ADHD). It was a big problem in classes that were dependent on multiple choice tests. Things that normal students, even if they didn't study, wouldn't get tripped up on. I would constantly answer questions without reading the entire question (another symptom).
The classes that I got A's in, where usually the classes that had fill in the blank questions or short answer questions. Teachers didn't try to trick (or even if the other teachers wernt trying to do that, their questions didn't exploit my ADHD symptoms of reading too quickly, making careless mistakes (big in Calculus which I got a C in and Physics).
It's funny. College Physics 1 and 2... B+ both times. I constantly made careless mistakes on tests. The teacher was big on tricking people. I get into Biomedical Physics, and pull 1st in class A's in both the first and second section of the class. They ended up giving me a minor in Physics. Why? College physics exams were filled with math problems that required dozens of steps to get to the answer. I knew the material, but I constantly made mistakes. Biomedical physics, was based on understanding of the concepts.
I finally got diagnosed and treated for ADHD a couple months into graduate school (they supplied health insurance so =/).
As much as I wish I could just walk into a medical school (the path I was planning on taking since I started college as a Biology major and never waivered) and saying.... I have a valid explenation for my grades, where is my seat, I know that isn't going to happen.
Regardless, I have to take the MCAT and perform well. After some shortend practice tests (doing 45 minute sections and scoring in the 11-12 range for both science sections) I think I can pull it off now that I am medicated.
When I got into graduate school it was fine.
I quickly realized while there, that, that was not for me. The research was driving me ape****. I wish I could change what happened, but I can't. Had just dropping out at that point not been like taking a metaphorical shotgun and blasting myself in the knee, I would have just cut my ties. I felt I needed to finish what I started without running away.
My father is paying back the 30,000$ because he is the one who got that money. He hit hard times, almost lost his business because of intreset on debt, so I took out some loans and loaned it to him. Probably not the smartest thing I have ever done, but =/.
I really enjoyed my "past academic career". I hated the research, and the journal clubs. My god I have never encournted somethign so psycholgically devestating. Weeks of "here is 5 articles, read them by monday, so we can talk about them for 4 hours", just so you can work even harder to make up for that lost time in the lab on another day.
Stupid move going to graduate school, yeah probably. It felt right when I settled and took the seat (really didn't take much to get it... =/). I learned what I wanted to do, and got out with as much of my soul as possible. That required forfeiting my stipend and avoiding research and just taking classes (which mind you I really enjoyed). When reading a couple articles is that weeks asignment, I am straight. After reading 3 times as many articles because the PI wants us to "stay sharp", it becomes a stomach turning nightmare.
Clearly I didn't want to be there. I got a good LOR from my PI, as I worked hard as I could for him while I was with him. I left the program in good standings, with a nice story of "none of this research interests me". I am sure it will bite me in the ass to some degree, but who really expects somebody to stay in a program when none of the research there intrests them.
I got to the end of this reply, and forgot what I was responding too =/. Hopefully it fits... I am not sure I deserve such a stinging insult from you but, what ever. I am just the dumb kid, with a 3.4 GPA, and two wasted years in a program that served no purpose but to build debt, put me through 6 months of hell, before I bowed out and took the confered degree realizing this wasn't what I wanted.
Hopefully now that I am properly medicated, I can do something a lot of people seem to take advantage of... FOCUS =D
