Learning Disabilities: I Honestly Don't Know What to Do

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I'm having serious problems in school right now and I honestly don't know what to do. I have ADD and a Central Auditory Processing Disorder, and I do not learn well in lectures at all. I can take notes or I can follow along with what the professor is saying, but not both. If I take notes, I miss most of what the professor says. If I try to follow along, I miss less of what the professor says and don't have notes. If I get notes provided to me by the school, I get them 1-2 weeks after the lecture (after homework and quizzes on the material are passed), and even then they don't explain everything. Most of the course material is not covered in the text books, and searching online takes too much time and still doesn't yield everything I need to know. The lectures are almost entirely auditory in nature--some of the professors post their slides online, but they might as well be in Chinese. They don't even provide enough information to google the topics. I also don't have time to go to office hours because of my busy schedule (that is made busy in part because I spend so much time trying to figure out what the lectures are even about). If I did make it to office hours, I still wouldn't have enough time to go over the homework because of how long it is. There aren't any tutors for the the classes I'm taking either--the people who actually know this stuff are too busy with school to tutor.

I'm studying mechanical engineering (second year) and I have a very heavy workload--most of the people who are not learning disabled barely have time to do all the homework. I am on week three of the semester and the last two weeks I averaged about 4 hours of sleep per night. I still don't get all the homework done. I failed a math quiz that was easy because I was too tired to think clearly.

My school approved to have notes provided to me on the basis of AS alone. They don't care about my CAPD because the diagnosis was too long ago. I'm financially independent, am living off student loans, and don't have many resources available to me. I cannot afford any form of retesting. I have been through college before and did very well, but this was a) in a more forward thinking part of the country where professors understand the concept of different learning types, and b) I studied liberal arts. Honestly, the teaching styles of the professors at my previous school alone made learning easy for me--if my current professors taught the same way, I would not be having issues. I now have residency in a different state, making tuition elsewhere very expensive, and I don't know if I will even be able to transfer after this semester given the direction my GPA is going. Many colleges also do not accept second bachelor's applicants.

Does anyone have any advice? I'm running out of steam here, and if I drop out or am dropped for low grades, my loans will require immediate repayment in full. The most frustrating part of all this is that the material really isn't hard, it's that I don't even know what I'm supposed to be learning or where to find out.

I feel your pain, I can't learn from listening to a teacher either. It gives me anxiety that causes me to be unable to study, and sometimes even if the teacher is nice I will have an idiopathic bad reaction to the class.

I would just work out of the book all weekend. Ask the teacher about supplementary books that will cover what they say talking. Are you allowed to be absent from class, or does that count against you? If you're allowed, skip class to stay home and study. The time you took to get to class and listen to the teacher is wasted when you could be staying home and studying. Make sure you're well fed. If you can, get Schaum's books on the topics you need help with so you can check your answers and find out which types of problems you make mistakes on so you can correct it. Or maybe you can record the lecture and watch it twice? Maybe even fast forward it to play faster after you record it?

You need a time and space where you can just study all day and not have to worry about anything else. Do not study in the morning if you plan on doing something later, because the clock watching will take a toll on your executive function. Do not do other things first and then study either because your head will be full of junk data and distractions from the other stuff you did and you will be in a busywork rut and you will have to go to bed and wake up in order to 'reboot'. You need entire days devoted to study. No human contact, for that will cause anxiety and delay consolidation of the material. I find that I have to figure out the material on my own, without teachers tutors or anything else in order to understand it, and order to figure it out on my own, I need to block out all frustrations, human contact, sources of anxiety, et cetera,

Are you on any medications? How effective are they?

Wait... if you just show me an example of what you're learning, I could probably help. I've been studying math and physics on my own for some years now.

I'm taking 10mg Adderall. It helps but it's not a miracle. I spent most of today trying to study, and by study I mean I spent all day trying to figure out how to even start my homework. I just don't even know how to begin solving problems.

An example of one of the easier questions is dx/dt=10x-x^2, x(0)=1, solve using partial fractions. Wolfram Alpha, the text book, and I all get different answers. Another topic I'm unclear on is bifurcation.

Another problem I had was understanding all the Gibbs Free Energy equations and how to predict the rate of a reaction with them, but apparently most of the other students did too so the professor went over them more thoroughly. I'm still not entirely clear on the different variations, but I need to finish my math homework and review the notes before I get started on that again.

Don’t lose heart. I’d suggest that you try to get therapy for reducing the problems you face. Processing problems are often linked with attention and short-term memory issues. If you can obtain help to strengthen your short-term memory and attention, you may be able to process what you are hearing and understand it better.
I have an instinctive feeling (guided by my interest in and moderate knowledge of learning disabilities) that your problems could be remedied if you could try to take weekly therapeutic services for strengthening your short-term memory skills.
Also, till then, I recommend that you demand to be given in-depth notes and to be given more direction. It is the prerogative of any college to help their students cope with whatever challenges they may face.

Would the school allow you to record the lectures on a digital recorder (voice only)? Then you could listen to it a second time and take notes - even listen to it over and over again as needed.