Admission for an Oldie

Hello,

I want to return to college to study Electrical Engineering, EE. I graduated from Kent State University back in 1987, a non-prestigious college, with a Bachelor of Science/Software Programming and Design. My academic performance was poor though, 2.9GPA. However, I feel that now I am more mature and well grounded and that I will be academically successful. However, what I feel is irrelevant because I need to convince the college admission board of this. How do I convince them of this? Also, if by chance I am accepted, I am concerned that I have been out of school for about 20 years. So, can anyone please recommend books or other resources that I can use to get my English skills up to par? Also, I would like to brush up on my trig, calculus, and linear algebra so I would appreciate references to review materials for these subjects as well. I have never taken Statistics or Physics before either and I would like sources to get a basic introduction.

I think that I will have to enroll as an undergrad because I have been out of school a very long time and I don't possess an undergraduate degree in EE. However, again if accepted, I plan to continue on and get a MSEE because my goal is to go into research. I was interested in the application of EE to medical technology, more specifically, ‘Biomedical Electronic Engineering’. However, I’m not sure if that is exactly the area that I would like to enter. What exactly does a Biomedical Electronic Engineer do? Alternatively, I was also considering specializing in either Bionics, Human Machine Interface, maybe Nano Technology or somehow work with geneticists to help solve problems; using EE of course – but nothing that uses animals as subjects because I have a profound love for them!

I live in the state of Illinois/USA and I have no desire to move to another state in order to attend school, consequently, I was considering either Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering or perhaps University of Illinois at Chicago School of Engineering.

I would be greatly indebted to anyone that can offer any advice and/or resources so that I may achieve my goals. Oh yes, I should add my 7 years of work experience as a Software Developer and currently I am designing and writing software for cell phones using JavaME, previously J2ME, and ‘NET’ web services using C#.

Please be honest with me; I’m an adult and I can handle it.

Well, that is all that I can think of so now I will close and I apologize for the longevity of this posting but I had an awful lot to say.

Sincerely,
Ms.ERamsey