[William I am]

The heading sums it up. Here are the details:

Relationship is good, she's younger than me by a few years, and INFP, and very unlikely to go nuts partying, etc. I'm 25, started college at 17 and switched around a lot, like many ENTP's.

I need another 21 units/5 classes of upper division math at Humboldt State. Humboldt state is known inside the state as a pot capital, and it is full of mostly psychedelic drugs. It also has exceptionally nice people and a real feeling of community. The community is very liberal and welcoming, and that is veeeery good for me.

At New Mexico Tech (NMT), I would need to take between 35 and 45 units, or about 14 classes. New Mexico Tech is listed as #2 for colleges in the western states. HSU(Humboldt) is listed as #48. NMT is a school that only works with STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) subjects, which is pretty cool. HSU is a liberal arts school. The school rankings seem to be reflective of what I saw in both places.

I don't get any sense of community from the city where NMT is. The town is tiny at 10,000 people, and the school has about 1800 students.



I don't exactly know how to decide. Any pointers?
The things I'm worried about are:
-Is NMT going to be populated 95%+ by people I won't want to associate with either because they're IxxJ types (not my type to interact with) or very conservative?
-There are lots of friendly people at HSU, but none of them are close friends and I've been there for 3 semesters.
-NMT is rigorous. I thrive in rigorous environments if I'm healthy and have other people who care. Most people at HSU don't seem to care. I've had health problems and am still trying to straighten them out, with good success.

-Can you get into grad school for science with a BA?
-Am I taking a step in the wrong direction by trading a better quality education/degree for a longer time to graduate? I care a lot about being good at what I do (competence), and at Humboldt I've been scraping by because of either crappy teachers or uninvolved students making me feel like I'm on my own with the subject matter.
-At HSU the coursework has been either insultingly easy(boring, unmotivating), or made difficult by bad teachers.

Classes start Monday. (But I can get help packing and moving. It's not too late.).

 

[MegaTuxRacer]

Pretty sure there are application deadlines. Iunno dude. The degree won't matter once you get some work experience, so that shouldn't be a factor at all.

 

[William I am]

Pretty sure there are application deadlines. Iunno dude. The degree won't matter once you get some work experience, so that shouldn't be a factor at all.

I've already been accepted to both schools.

 

[MegaTuxRacer]

I've already been accepted to both schools.

Oh well in that case, you could knock out the 5 classes and then move to be with your girlfriend...or waste more years of your life. Like I said, the degree doesn't really matter once you gain experience.

 

[bigtex1989]

Oh well in that case, you could knock out the 5 classes and then move to be with your girlfriend...or waste more years of your life. Like I said, the degree doesn't really matter once you gain experience.

Couldn't agree more. Quality of education is a lot less important than people will have you believe. If you get a degree at an accredited university, it is more or less equal to most other university degrees. Some exceptions might be MIT or Caltech or Stanford. Other than that, people don't really care. Since you aren't picking between those big names for STEM, the quality should not be a factor, ESPECIALLY if you are planning to go to grad school.

As for getting into grad school with a B.A., good luck...ish. Depends on where you go. If you want to go to a "good" school, then good luck. If you don't really care, I'm sure it won't matter. At this point, I'd recommend doing your two semesters (maybe try to upgrade to a B.S. since neither will be full semesters) maybe try and get some research in with some professors? Maybe that could offset your B.A. Get as much experience in a lab as possible while you are still there. If I had to go back and do it again, I'd have done WAY more lab work.

 

[William I am]

Couldn't agree more. Quality of education is a lot less important than people will have you believe. If you get a degree at an accredited university, it is more or less equal to most other university degrees. Some exceptions might be MIT or Caltech or Stanford. Other than that, people don't really care. Since you aren't picking between those big names for STEM, the quality should not be a factor, ESPECIALLY if you are planning to go to grad school.

As for getting into grad school with a B.A., good luck...ish. Depends on where you go. If you want to go to a "good" school, then good luck. If you don't really care, I'm sure it won't matter. At this point, I'd recommend doing your two semesters (maybe try to upgrade to a B.S. since neither will be full semesters) maybe try and get some research in with some professors? Maybe that could offset your B.A. Get as much experience in a lab as possible while you are still there. If I had to go back and do it again, I'd have done WAY more lab work.

HSU doesn't offer a BS in math, only a BA. It's science is primarily bio/environmental. Hmm.. I do know two professors, but they only do research on bio topics.

I'd rather get a BS in math - and I'm considering grad school to make up for only being able to get a BA. I feel underprepared in math... heh.