ghosts of the past: effects of bad grades from 18 years ago?
Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 1:27 pm
hi folks!
i'm nearly done applying for a graduate program for becoming a physics teacher- it's pretty neat, in that it is really an entire undergraduate physics program, with a few graduate level education courses to boot. it's designed for people who have a degree in a related subject (mine was in math, for instance), and who would like to become high school physics teachers and/or eventually continue on at the regular M.S. or PhD level.
My biggest worry is that, about 18 years ago, when i finished my B.A., i had absolutely HORRIBLE grades- cumulative gpa nowhere near a 3.0, due to all the courses i had to retake. i just didn't care back then, and never would've imagined that stuff could come back to haunt me.
Since that time i've done quite a bit, gotten a masters in financial economics, and have been working in a very quantitative and technical field in banking which actually requires the use of a few methods from physics (this is, in fact, how i truly became interested in physics, after having really hated it back during undergrad). I look really good on paper these days and am a far cry from the immature kid i was as an undergrad long ago. Do you think i will stand a chance of being admitted to the teaching program? i spoke with the graduate advisor, and he told me that they rarely even get applications for the program i'm applying to (most applicants shoot for the M.S. or PhD degrees), and that everything should work out just fine for me. However, i never mentioned my poor academic performance from the distant past. What do you guys think?
thanks for any tips or suggestions!
i'm nearly done applying for a graduate program for becoming a physics teacher- it's pretty neat, in that it is really an entire undergraduate physics program, with a few graduate level education courses to boot. it's designed for people who have a degree in a related subject (mine was in math, for instance), and who would like to become high school physics teachers and/or eventually continue on at the regular M.S. or PhD level.
My biggest worry is that, about 18 years ago, when i finished my B.A., i had absolutely HORRIBLE grades- cumulative gpa nowhere near a 3.0, due to all the courses i had to retake. i just didn't care back then, and never would've imagined that stuff could come back to haunt me.
Since that time i've done quite a bit, gotten a masters in financial economics, and have been working in a very quantitative and technical field in banking which actually requires the use of a few methods from physics (this is, in fact, how i truly became interested in physics, after having really hated it back during undergrad). I look really good on paper these days and am a far cry from the immature kid i was as an undergrad long ago. Do you think i will stand a chance of being admitted to the teaching program? i spoke with the graduate advisor, and he told me that they rarely even get applications for the program i'm applying to (most applicants shoot for the M.S. or PhD degrees), and that everything should work out just fine for me. However, i never mentioned my poor academic performance from the distant past. What do you guys think?
thanks for any tips or suggestions!