but, if you look through my transcript, you see these dramatic differences between semesters - i'd get 5 As one semester, then 5 Ds the next, and if you didn't know the story it would just look like i was all over the place...
so, they offered me a qualifying year, but i didn't see the point. all i could do with a masters degree was get a job i didn't want, which was the situation i was in with the bachelor's degree in the first place.
the reason my marks were all over the place is that my parents were assholes - they kept throwing me out of the house for stupid reasons to try to teach me backwards lessons. it was all about adhering to authority, which is the wrong thing to teach your children, and a bizarre thing to try to push down on an adult in their early 20s. and, the stupidity of their behaviour completely destroyed my transcript.
when i went back in 2008, they couldn't render me homeless anymore because i didn't live with them. and, my marks weren't just straight As but straight 99s. i just breezed through that comp sci degree like it was nothing, until they forced me to interact with the other students - and i just fell apart on the spot. i breezed through the curriculum, but i couldn't function in the social component.
i couldn't do anything about the situation at the time, either - i had nowhere else to go.
the reality is that the fact that i was able to cobble together a strong b+ under the circumstances i was in was actually exceedingly impressive. most people would have had little choice but to drop out...but i undid what they left me with as best as i could, and turned it around just enough.
if i had stayed for another semester, i would have pulled my gpa up that extra two percent and it wouldn't have been an issue. but, it wouldn't have made me more interested in the topic, or more convinced it was worth my time.