Hello Dani,
Let me start with this preamble quote:
The importance of the various indirect influences [on learning] were highlighted a generation ago in an influential book about schools, entitled 'How Children Fail' (Holt, 1964). That book demonstrated that many children were failing to thrive as classroom learners, not because they lacked intelligence or the capacity to learn, or because the quality of the instruction was inadequate, but for reasons that were connected to their emotions and feelings (Holt, 1964)... Indirect influences on learning: Attention, motivation, and study habits...
- "Principles of Abilities and Human Learning" by Michael J.A.Howe (Psychology Press, 1998)
I've caught up with a large number of your vlog videos, and I'm only sorry I may be writing too late to influence your plans for the fall.
I'm very glad you were so frank about your experiences in college. But I was HEARTBROKEN to learn about the grave difficulties you have encountered in completing those classes for which you cannot self-study and obtain CLEP credit.
You told us that of the 30 class/lab-based college courses you've started, you have only managed to complete 3 - a mere 10%. WHAT A FRIGGIN' DISASTER!!!
I may not know you as well as many other people, but it is still very obvious to me that you need to put aside full-time college attendance for a spell while you FIGURE OUT AND REMEDIATE YOUR INABILITY TO COMPLETE COURSES YOU BEGIN!
You told us that you dropped your full load of spring courses about a month before the end of term, suggesting that you lost interest or heart or something.
I would not be surprised if you have problems which afflict so many younger people like yourself, who grew up in an era of constant, intense, gratifying stimulation by cheap/free movies, video games, porn, Internet, etc. I think this has conditioned too many of them to need excessive emotional relief from the challenges of life - stress, incivility, depression, boredom, etc. - which are obtained from said potential distractions/palliatives.
For some people, this sort of problem has risen to the level of addiction. A recent book by a famous (former APA president?) psychologist, titled "The Demise of Guys," identifies porn and video games in particular for this sort of profound impact on young men, who are significantly failing to reach their potential in school, in work and in social life.
I know you are female, but is the notion implausibly applicable to you, too? I know you only watch video porn for professional reasons. But could other stuff, including your porn WORK be providing the same sort of mega-pleasure dynamic that undermines your ability to concentrate and persevere when course work becomes more challenging and even irritating, as its novelty evaporates and the term races to its conclusion?
Whatever the reason for your chronic course-dropping, I'm also very worried that with so much practice, your emotional mind has "learned" that dropping a course mid-stream is the appropriate - even the only possible - thing to do.
Taking your statistics at face value, your progress has cost you TEN TIMES as much MONEY and TIME as it nominally should do. Could you do any worse if you took a time-out and invested in things that could CURE your problems?
First, I hope that you are aware that ASU has consulting services for students dealing with all sorts of academic and/or emotional problems. Have you tried to explore whether they can help you? They can hardly provide unlimited help, but that is the place to start. Maybe they have some time-tested ways to help you figure out what is going wrong and possibly, even how to improve things. Look
here and
here.
Should that fail, the next step might be to engage personally paid helpers like tutors and even coaches. Someone who drives a BMW and can risk and lose $8,000 on a friend's hair-brain business scheme has a lot more cash in hand than probably 99% of ASU students. Why not try taking ONLY ONE course next term and engage a personal tutor/coach to assist you EVERY week. And try giving them incentive pay: Guarantee them a certain payment for the term, whether or not you drop the course (as long as they make themselves available as long as you want); but guarantee them DOUBLE that if at the end of term you complete the course and earn at least a B!
If this approach works, you might land up finishing nearly all the courses you start, so that it costs you no extra time and say, only TWICE as much money as it should (i.e. if you land up paying tutors an amount equal to tuition). Hell, you might even DISCOVER WHAT THE F@CK IS GOING WRONG ON YOUR OWN and forgo any further need for tutors and coaches after that epiphany! Either way, once you have a method which works, you can then try carrying a full course load, and maybe even pull it off!
And finally, if tutors and coaches can't help you, I suggest you totally stop taking courses for now and pay a psychologist specializing in educational difficulties. This way you could get the best diagnosis and treatment available and maybe finally cure your chronic problems at long last!
I wish I could share something applicable to you from my personal college experiences decades ago, but that world and my social/financial situation was VASTLY different from yours! I was a poor boy from a struggling immigrant family who could only attend college by showing such uninterrupted exemplary performance that I could win substantial competitive merit scholarship help. And I was also in a race to get somewhere fast enough that I could prevent the certain financial disaster awaiting my aged parents in VERY few years.
"Unfortunately" for you, for the present at least, it doesn't matter if you drop or flunk one or all of your courses - your comfortable life and the well-being of your folks is not at risk. Perhaps only when you can invest some ego, or sincere dread about the consequences of your repeated failures to follow through, will you be able to mobilize and maintain the mental and emotional stamina you need to complete a challenging college course with deadlines. You have my sincere best wishes for a successful academic future. But unless you try something RADICALLY different from what you have done to date, I think you can only make it ever less likely you will ever achieve your goals.
By the way, I've closely examined ASU's Major Map
here for your major, and others you might consider undertaking, as well as the syllabi for many of the germane courses.
I really wonder if you want to become a full-blown Website specialist, rather than majoring in Film Production (Look
here and
here) and supplementing it with a self-designed minor in computing (Sadly, a formal one does not seem to exist.) Perhaps you might find some inspiration in a recent opinion column by David Brooks
here.
While much of professional Web design involves visual thinking or intricate non-numerical verbal logic (as does contract law!), I still wonder if someone as frustrated with and averse to math as you have been would be happy working intensively in this area, and keeping up with endless new developments. Have you asked your academic advisor if math-haters land up happy doing this after they graduate?
I'm curious: Do you know why they won't accept new students into (ANY speciality of) the Applied Science major from now on? Is there some reason ASU would rather not state?
BTW, some believe that females learn math and science rather differently than do males. You might want to take a look at a book taking this position published in 2009 titled "Teaching the female brain : how girls learn math and science" at your ASU library
here. Who knows? Maybe if your teachers of long ago had only known what this book puts forth, your experiences with math, and attitude today, might have been entirely different.
Even if you still plan to stick with your current major, I'd like to encourage you to Minor (look
here) in Film & Media Production (F&MP), in which you ALREADY HAVE SO MUCH PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE! Hey, maybe if you took one F&MP course per term, the DELIGHT you'd meet in filling in the gaps of your own knowledge would JAZZ you so much that bearing the stress of your engineering courses to end of term would prove possible.
And if your ambition to earn a degree dies for one reason or another, consider that you are already working in showbiz and can derive potential practical benefit from some a la carte courses, e.g. in acting, video editing, etc. For example, instead of spending four or (many?) more years earning a bachelor's degree in web design, complete FMP 220 - Film and Media Post-Production I, take an exam, and become an Avid Certified User!
I hope you will give what I have written your serious consideration! Best of luck for a bright future.