College/Life advice needed...help!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Hi ya’ll, it’s me, Sarah. I need some advice, reassurance, etc since I am having trouble making a huge decision right now.

Ok, first of all, I was in a special HS program, International Baacalaureate. When I was applying for colleges, I wanted to be a Social Worker, so I looked for local acredited colleges. FSU was the only one acredited. It is tiny, 5000 people, a big party scene. I knew that going in, but I thought it would be ok, and they offered me a HUGE scholarship, so I went there. I applied to several other colleges, got in, and got offered mucho $$. I thought I could handle a tight-knit, tiny community, but coming from Baltimore, I couldn’t. I made it through the year and although I thought about applying to other colleges over spring break, I thought, ya know, it’s one more year and then I can transfer. (also, I decided not to be a social worker) I have a 4.0 GPA at FSU, but for several reasons, I am unhappy there:

  1. Too small
  2. Far away from city/family
  3. No really close friends, just a lot of acquaintances
  4. No individuality (of others, not me)
  5. If you don’t drink every weekend or rush a sorority, you are a freak.
  6. Like high school, but the cliques are bigger.

So, I have been going back and forth, unable to sleep, this past month since school ended. I really do not want to go back there. The idea of it causes breathing problems - I feel so suffocated by the thought.

BUT my only option now is to take a semester off - I missed the fall 2000 deadlines for scholarships and admissions. I feel in my heart that this would be the best option for me. Although I am definitely going to major in English, I want to double major w/ something else. But since I gave up social work, I don’t know - I am interested in philosophy, poltics, law, sociology, anthropology. I really want some time to think.

So if I drop out, I would work full-time (I have an excellent job that pays quite a bit) and take intro to phil. and anthro. classes at community college.

I would apply for spring 2001 semester and probably get in to any college I choose. I applied to all the local area colleges (UMBC, College Park, Towson, Loyola) and I shouldn’t have a problem getting in or getting scholarships - if $$ becomes a problem, I can always get loans.

My dilemma now is - does this make me a failure? I will definitely go back, but a whole semester…I feel like I am wasting my life. I don’t know if I should go back and be unhappy or take some time off. Actually, I know what I SHOULD do (take time off) but I don’t know if I…I don’t know. Will I be happy somewhere else? Will I be throwing my life away?

HELP!

2

This is a huge dilemma your in. I had to drop out of UCF last Spring because of financial and emotional distress. It is so true about the sorority clique thing. I was pledging a sorority my first fall semester and had my boyfirend pledge the opposite fraternity. That semester the dam broke and everything fell atop me. I was depledged, in debt, in a piss-poor job and there were a lot of family problems.

I didn’t like the school I chose either, I actually wanted to go to FSU but UCF offered me more $$$.

I completely regret dropping out because it is so hard to get back into college once you’ve been out.

The best thing I would suggest is, take classes at the closest community college to your job and home as a transient student. You don’t have to go full time and it counts as FSU credit. Apply for the colleges you want to go to then transfer from FSU to them in the Spring.

Please don’t drop out for even a semester because priorities change once you hit the adult world and don’t have “high school II” around you. You realize how petty people are in college. Especially the ones who don’t have to support themselves.

3

As an alumnus from the University of Delaware, let me put a plug in for UD:

About the same distance from Baltimore as College Park.
Large (Div IAA) school, about 16,000 undergrads.
Great small town setting (Main Street, Newark DE runs through the middle of the campus)
Superb honors program (with your GPA, you should have little trouble getting in)
Compact campus (nearly everything is in walking distance except perhaps the agriculture school).
Lots of alternatives to the Greek Life, if your not into that thing.
Excellent accademic programs.
Guaranteed 4 years on-campus housing.

If you’re looking for a good school in the Mid-Atlantic area, you should seriously consider UD. I can give you some contacts there.

4

Sara, Lemme get in my plug for GMU, which is pretty damn near DC.

  1. 25,000 people (and I’m in a social setting where everyone is an induvijual. It’s the school’s academic team).

  2. I don’t have a car, and the only things not walkable are the law school and the other branches of the school.

  3. Vienna is 16,000 people and Fairfax can’t be much bigger. I’ve essentially grown up around here.

  4. I don’t know about the quality of the honors program, but the quality of the people in it is wonderful. And I say that being an outsider. If someone with a 3.0 GPA can get in here, you should have no friggin’ problem.

  5. Not every living soul is in a frat or sor.

  6. The academic programs are very good. We have one of the best CS programs in the nation, if you’re at all interested in that (I’m not). And as I’m going to be majoring in English, it will be fun and interesting. Already the prospects of taking classes with a fellow doper are doing wonders for the funk I’ve been in for the past few days.

  7. Housing on-campus isn’t guaranteed, but that the same time this is a commuter school, so you’re pretty much guaranteed.

And . . . this does not make you a failure. Not wanting to be someplace at which you feel miserable isn’t failure, it’s success. I say that because a lot of people choose to be miserable at one place rather than putting in the work (or not working) to go someplace better. By merely considering the fact that better does exist you’re one step ahead of millions of people.

Do what you want. Screw what your parents want. They aren’t you, and they don’t live your life. If your desire is to pick up trash for a living, do that. If it’s to make the perfect whatever, do that. If you want to be a priest, hats off to you. Other people can try to control you, but so long as you have a bed and a wallet to fall back on nothing can stop you.

Hope this gives you a good sense that we’re behind you :slight_smile:

5

Hi Sara,
I am in Baltimore, too! Hi Hon!
My advice would be take the semester off, but take a class somewhere (Essex, Towson), think about what you want to take for your double major and go ahead and go someplace close like Towson or Loyola. Are you sure you want to double-major? That can be hard.
Towson is a good school, and not everything revolves around sororities and frats and parties. I hated that, too.
You say you are working…try and save as much as you can. Resist the temptation to live in an apt. with friends or on-campus. I have heard the housing is a real nightmare at TU, anyway.
Towson would be dirt-cheap, since you are a resident, and is a great school.

Nice to see another Balti-moron :wink: on this board!

6

I meant to also say…taking some time off DOES NOT make you a failure. If you weren’t happy in Florida, you were wise to come home. You need to go with what you feel is right.
Hope this helps!
:slight_smile:

7

About the only thing that would make you a failure is to not go back at all and just give up. It took me eight years to get my two BAs and I’m glad I got both of them. There were several changes in direction in those eight years (from Chemistry to Music Ed. to Computer Science), but when I came out, I knew what I wanted to be, which is more than I could say going in. I now do what I enjoy as a vocation and an avocation (Computer programming during the day and performing with several local musical organizations nights and weekends).

There’s nothing wrong with Community college. I wish I had gone that route, but when I graduated HS there weren’t any that were close to where I was. I wouldn’t take the semester completely off and just work, but do take some classes at CC to help get you farther into you required coursework.

College can be one of the best times of your life. Be where you want to be, and do what you love.

8

Oh, and one thing that you probably need to be aware of…after you graduate and start working: if you thought college was just like high school, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The cliques at work are worse than HS or college.

9

Nacho4Sara,

Forgive me if I sound sycophantic here, but in my brief time lurking and posting, you’ve always struck me as a sensible, level-headed, intelligent person.

I have to admit that I don’t understand the “dilemma” here:
You’ve missed the deadline for next semester, you HAVE to take the semester off. What are your other options?

As it stands, judging by the rest of your post, it might not be such a bad thing. You’re clearly “torn” at being at FSU anyway, but just as clearly committed to going back to school after the current semester. You have a well paying job in the meantime. Sounds like a pretty good position to be in, to me.

As to whether or not this makes you a failure, I must say that I expect that you know the answer to that, as intelligent as you are. You are no more a failure than anyone who took time off during college, anyone who did not go directly to college after high school, and anyone who didn’t graduate in four years or less (I didn’t–took an extra quarter). It’s absurd to even think that way.

You strike me as a very bright person, who’s very focused and directed and is in an enviable position.

10

I got into UCSD with a 3.2 GPA in the 70’s. My neice, who has a GPA of 4.3 [yes, 4.3] couldn’t get into UCSB with that in 1998.

11

Nacho4Sara:
If you think that was isolated . . . there is worse. I went to college (go Embry-Riddle!! :slight_smile: ) in the middle of the desert in Northern Arizona, 2 hours north of Phoenix.

It was terrible the first two years… Nowhere to go, school was 10 miles away from town, no girls, 1400 people, just terrible. Then I got a car. Things got better quickly. Prescott was not just tolerable, but started to like it. I also got a job at the Home Depot there. I met people from town itself. It kicked ass . . .

So, if you can, get a job downtown, and get out of the school. Yeah, the people at school may suck, but you can always find people to hang with in town.

BTW, I wasn’t isolated before: I’m now stationed in the middle of North Dakota, 8 hours from any big city. This place is isolated . . .

12

Also, if you find yourself at a party school, and don’t like the party scene, try hanging out with the nerd majors. Everyone at Villanova drank heavily… Except for the science majors. This suited me fine, as a non-drinking astronomer.
I’m not sure if this is relevant for your situation, though… It looks like, at the stage you’re at now, you probably would be best off transfering. Don’t think it reflects a personal failure of some sort; lots of folks end up changing their minds midstream.

13

English and Anthro? Sarah, i could kiss ya! My kinda gal! [hijack] William Hurt in “Altered States”: “Why are the most beautiful women in Anthropology?” [/hijack]

Community colleges are definitely the way to go for frosh and soph years. The teachers are not out to flunk you! in a big university they need to cull the herd the first couple of years. So they give you a lousy education (enormous classes taught be TAs, frinstance) and try to get you to flunk out or just quit. In accounting 105 at my local CC the teacher wanted to end up with 25 people who understood introductory accounting, just like at my biz-oriented univ. Except she did it with a class of 30, not 500. Completely different philosophy.

You are most certainly NOT a failure. And I’ll kick the ass of anybody who says you are. You learned a lesson and you learned it early, which is more than most people would.

14

Sara, don’t think for a moment that taking a semester off means you are a failure! Taking time off can be the best think you could do. Work, earn a little bit of money, maybe travel somewhere for a couple weeks, etc. We (I know I was, and I suspect you are in the same position) are raised with absolute certainty that we were going to college after high school. There was no question. Therefore, there wasn’t really any burning desire to get a higher education. I mean, what else was there to do? So I went. I don’t think I did the wrong thing, but taking some time off would have probably worked out equally well. If you have IB credit, you should be able to graduate after four years anyway - AP credit allowed me to graduate a quarter early and save a bundle of money in the process. Point being, some time away from the educational system that you are probably extremely familiar with will probably be a good thing. It’s an opportunity to do something different, to learn something new, and it will probably make you want to go back and learn more than ever. I’ve been out of school for three months, and miss it dreadfully. I miss the routine and the familiarity. But I think some Life Experiences (primarily living in a foreign country) have made me appreciate my education and for the first time, a decision to go to school (I hope to start grad school in 2001) is one I’m making not because I was expected to or didn’t have any other choices, but because I want to, and I have the desire to learn. I’m extrapolating my own experiences on to you, but because they were so powerful, I want to share them and help you get through this difficult situation.

Don’t let anyone pidgeonhole you into making you think you need to follow some set schedule. Don’t fret and worry about the semester - in the long run, it’s only a few months - take advantage of your time off!

Kyla
BA in Anthropology :slight_smile:

15

No, it definately doesn’t make you a failure. You’re taking a semester off, nothing wrong with that, AS LONG AS YOU GO BACK. Trust me. It’s hard to go back. Couple things to consider, though. [ul]
[li]Housing - Are you going to live with your parents? Are they cool with that? As you will now be working, will they expect you to pay rent? After working an 8 hour day and going to classes, will you be able to contribute to the household (chores, etc.) as they expect you to? Talk about it ahead of time.[/li][li]Social - You will be AMAZED how fast your priorities change when you have to get up for work every morning. And how that limites you socially. Your friends from school are able to get snockered on a Wednesday night, and won’t understand why you’re not coming along. I work with people who are a considerable amount older than I am, and it REALLY limites me socially. [/ul][/li]That’s a pretty short list, but they’re major things to consider. My ex-roommate graduated with a BSW, only to find it worthless. She offered to sell it to me last week. :slight_smile: So you DEFINATELY made the right decision there. If you were unhappy at FSU, then it’s not the right school. Take this time to figure out what you want from a school, and investigate the schools you’re thinking about. Transfering once is OK, but more than once and you start to loose credits.

In the end, it’s like ole’ wacky Polonius said, “To thine own self be true.” Big change is scarey, but if you stare down that fear, you’ll be WAY stronger for it. Trust me. Good luck, if you need to vent, feel free to e-mail me, I’ve been there.