Grad school "+" with a low GPA

Ahhh....the age old fashion of continuing an education after your bachelor's degree. Sometimes a graduate degree means you have failed in the real world, other time's a grad degree is simply a career advancement. Either way, most people fall into one of those two categories. There is a third option which is a career change. However this method is generally only used when a baseline of education at the lower levels meets or exceeds graduate education admissions.

In my case, I have something different; something strange. I have a situation where my GPA is so low that I may never be able to recover for a graduate degree in my life time. To put it fairly, I have between a 2.0 and a 2.5 undergrad GPA in accounting. The major is difficult and has a high wash out rate. I should have washed out, but didn't because my military back ground has taught me to never quit. Even when giving up would have a better outcome.

On this night, I am having quit a bit of trouble blogging about what I want to say. I can tell you that my small dog is eating her dog food and in front of her is a crowbar mark where the previous owner of this house removed the baseboard and damaged the drywall.

Anyways, I have pondered graduate education since my sophomore year of college. I even went up to my professor and asked her what grad school was like. She immediately looked at me, leaned back in her stance, and said "wow, I was not expecting that from you". After some thought she said that I think like a grad student. I guess that's an easy way of saying you just don't have the grades for it. This is a problem. As most can imagine, grad school requires good grades to get into. Grad school is also not a joke that one just meanders into. As it happens, when choosing a grad school one can expect that they will master something. For me that almost certainly has a reference to accounting. This circles back to the whole idea of needing a solid GPA to get into grad school in the first place.

I've thought about accounting, then other area's of study. My problem, and apparently that of others too, is that I am at a disadvantage for higher education wherever I go. The only real solution is to start completely over and earn another bachelor's degree. Since I really do not want to start over as a freshman, I could have some classes transfer over and finish in another field. My problem then becomes my GPA in total. If I stay in the same state school system, my grade point average will only add or subtract based on the new classes that I take. So in theory a person with a 2.7 GPA and 120 credit hours trying to get another degree with recycled classes will only raise his or her academic profile slightly. This brings back the idea of attending another school as a freshman and never bringing up the previous bachelor's degree. It's a smart idea I would say, but one that will cost four years of hard study.

This brings me to the masters degree. I have been thinking lately about a career in dentistry. I could care less about the money, however I would be very interested in helping people. Not to mention I love researching, and to figure out ways to make preventative care more specialized would be grand. However I have very few science classes under my belt. Not to mention I have 1 reference from a professor in college. That's how poorly I did.

So where does this put my readers and what questions can you solve with this? Well to be truthful, if you have a low GPA academics are probably not your strong suit. You can give up, but for a person similar to me that is just not an option. My sergeant once told me that a strong head leads to a soft ass. I may just be proving that point in this blog.