Opposable Thumbs

So, as any of you who know me or have been keeping up with my past entries here know, I'm preparing to re-enter school. I never finished my undergraduate work and have decided to go back with the goal of persuing a bachelor of science degree in mathematics. I'm not going to go into why I choose that particular degree just yet (I'll save that for a later entry), but rest assured that it is what I want to do and that I have thought about it a good deal. Regardless of all that, I've enrolled fulltime at Austin Community College. While I would have liked to be back at UT, I didn't have the time or money to get back in this semester. The fact is there are still a lot of classes I can get through ACC that will transfer to UT and will apply to my newly chosen degree plan. Specifically, I've signed up for four classes this semester: US Government, US History II, Engineering Physics I and Chemistry I. I'll be cutting back to 30 hours a week at work, so I think I should be able to handle this load. Unfortunately, I can't take any more math courses through ACC. I've already taken all the transferable classes that are available there. The problem now is that I have doubts about my goal of getting into the math program at UT. I know I can get in eventually after I've taken enough classes and shown that I can do it (my past record is pretty poor because of my initial couple of semesters out of high school -- sometimes it's just not wise to go straight into college after a torturous college prep program). I need to prove to the advisors in the math department that I'm a good candidate for their program. Which means I should be loading up on math classes. Granted my science classes should show at least the proper apptitude, but I'm not certain that will be enough. The other issue is just timing. I mean, I'm not in a huge hurry to get through, but it would be nice to get down the road a bit and be able to look more seriously at what the future holds. The fact is that for the bachelor of science degree quite a few hours are going to be needed before I can start seeing the end approaching (at least 40 hours of math total, of which I already have 12). So, the other option is that I can sign up for a course or two through the UT extension program. This program makes certain standard UT classes available to non-UT students in the evenings. The classes are not cheap ($460 a piece for the ones I'm look at, and that doesn't include the books). And I would need to drop a course or two (I guess I can wait on the history or government classes for now -- in fact, I could probably test out of one or the other with a little preparation). I just don't know... and I've got to make a decision in the next day or two.