mr. tran is an idiot
i don't shy away from patting myself on the back on this blog too often but i'll also admit to my mistakes...so here's a little story of probably one of the dumbest things i've done in recent years...last time i wrote about my second to last quarter of school and this takes place after that...i was figuring out what classes i was going to take in my final quarter...i added up all the units i had taken over the years and saw that i already had enough to graduate...so i just had to take two classes i needed in order to complete my major...including the few units i got from doing research, i think i had signed up for just maybe 9 units that final quarter...so i was happy with my two classes and everything seemed fine...then halfway through the quarter, i got some bad news...
one number you hear a lot at davis is 13...that's the number of units they want you to take each quarter...davis wants everyone to graduate in four years so they have this thing called minimum progress where you have to average out to 13 units a quarter or else they'll put you on academic probation...so 13 units is always something to keep in mind when you figure out what classes to take...since i had enough units to graduate, i ignored that rule...in the end, i was correct and able to graduate without any issue...however, there was another number i should have kept in mind...that was the number of units required to be considered a full time student...this was never an issue for me during my four years of college so i didn't even think about it...it turns out that that number ended up being 12 units which i definitely did not have so i wasn't considered a full time student that last quarter...no big deal, right?
unfortunately i found out that in order to receive some types of financial aid, i had to be registered as a full time student...since i wasn't, i lost all that money...i don't remember exactly how much it was, but i'm pretty sure it was above $1500...yeah...i was pretty angry with myself...i just had to take one more easy meaningless class and all that money would have been mine...and this wasn't loan money that i would have to pay back in the future...this was free federal grant money that i could do whatever the hell i wanted with...money that would definitely be helpful right now when i don't have any...the funny thing is that $1500 would have been the perfect amount of money to tide me over until i start dental school...once i start school again, i'll be rolling in financial aid money (all loans though)...but right now, i'm just a sad pauper...