Past Mistakes

[Falgore]

Hello, I entered college back in 2001 and did horribly, my classes were either a "W" or "F" and I just didn't care for school and I was 18. I went back when I was 25 and achieved some great grades, I had a 3.5 GPA or higher and I thought I wanted to do Radiology. Then, I got into the courses and I just wasn't feeling it and I dropped out of the courses far too late to even withdrawal from them and I got a F in 4 courses in Radiology. I'm going to go back to school this time around to go for a Licensed Professional Counselor but am I needlessly worried that those grades are going to look bad on me? Or should I just brush it off and put my best foot forward from now on? I want to receive financial aid but they're asking for those 4 grades that were an "F" that I received, I don't have to submit them on my transcript but I won't get the financial assistance that I'd like to get. Any thoughts? 

[tspier2]

I don't want to be a pessimist, but what makes you feel more convinced this time around that "Licensed Professional Counsel[ing]" is the path for you? You want to be absolutely certain that you're not going to attend school again strictly for the sake of getting a degree, for example. Also: I'm not sure what type of financial aid you received, but you might want to make sure that you are not required to pay the monies back in exchange for having failed the courses.

[Falgore]

Well, I have to be honest when I say the work would be 10x more interesting than what I'm doing now. I figure if I'm going to put work into something, it should be something where I can help people, I'm interested in people's various mental inabilities and would like to provide a path to help alleviate and remedy these kind of issues. Am I 100% convinced that, that would be the occupation for me? I don't know. It just seems like something I'd like to do. I never understood when people chose what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives at such a young age. I'm 31 now and it's still tough for me, I suppose in a sense it's just a matter of growing up and sticking to my guns at something.