Dear Aska,Please please please answer this question because you are my last resort. The psychology advisor is too busy to listen to my long-winded questions and Google was not very helpful either, so I turn to you. I’m a second-year student currently taking psychology courses, yet not majoring in psychology because I did not take the dreaded calculus in high school, nor did I take advanced functions for that matter. I really want to get into the psychology major and so I have decided to devote this summer to achieving the calculus credit. Well not the whole summer: I will be away for all of August for the Summer Abroad program (thus PUMP is out of the question). That leaves community college or the Independent Learning Center.The thing that you must first understand about me is that my brain is sadly, mathematically challenged. I can achieve okay grades if I sit down with the material for hours, simply memorizing by rote without really understanding.If I take high school courses on-line (or even in night school), I will be required to do functions before calculus, since it is a prerequisite. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to complete both over the course of the summer (and I also wanted to get a job and have some sort of life, which would be impossible). I would really like to be done before August, so this option seems bleak.The option of on-line university or college courses is also daunting. For one, will the grade I receive count towards my GPA? In that case, this option is out of the question because my GPA would drop drastically. The other issue is price – I am broke as can be at the moment. And finally there is the difficulty – I’m afraid I wouldn’t even be able to pass, given my wondrous “abilities”. So basically, I guess I am asking for the fastest, hopefully cheapest, and easiest way out. If all else fails, it has to at least be the fastest. If that fails as well, I will be forced to transfer to another university and spread rumours about the inflexibility and cruelty of U of T. I wish that was a joke. Thank you in advance,Troubled Student 🙁
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Okay troubled student,
Pretty much what I got out of that – yes, very long-winded question – was that you want the easy way out. If the psychology major is something that “you really wanted to get into”, then you wouldn’t make excuses. I know, I know Aska’s being a tough little thing.
Take this summer to stop memorizing math and start actually learning it. Grab a tutor and sit down with them and start actually understanding things. You won’t have to worry about your CGPA if you do well in the course and maybe the fear of it lowering will push towards trying hard in math.
The reason why I’m saying this is because you will encounter Stats courses in psychology and it will be benefiticial if you already have Calc and Vectors.
Trust me, U of T already has a strict reputation, so any number of rumors that you choose to spread will have slim to no effect on the school. They aren’t going to waver a prereq for any student that begs. They are put there to make sure students do not suffer throughout their majors and so that the pimp outside of the Eaton Centre does not attend U of T without an education or at least one of his best ladies.
Its one course, you can handle this.
Love,
Aska