Help me make a decision about my future

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, I’m just past halfway through my freshman year in college. It’s not a typical college. I’m very happy here, though slightly overwhelmed.

Here’s the thing: Senior year of high school, I was planning on taking a year off before college. Something happened (perhaps stress from finishing my IB exams) and I didn’t. I really, really regret that.

I’m seriously considering taking a year off next year. A lot of students do; we just at the beginning of the semester have about five ‘new’ freshman who did one semester, took a year off, and are trying again. One of my professors (who’s been teaching here for nearly 50 years and I respect immensely) actually recommended it in my end-of-the-semester review. First semester was decidedly hard, academically and socially. So, I’m trying to decide whether or not to take a year off next year.

The pros:
*I really want to be at this school. It’s a fabulous education, but I think that if I had a little bit more experience, I’d benefit a lot more from it.
*I’d probably work a bit and travel a bit (probably at the same time, actually), thus earning money and that famed ‘real life experience’ stuff.
*It would probably be fun.

The cons:
*After six months, I need to start repaying my loans. That means unless I immediately go into grad school or peace corps when I graduate, I have to keep repaying as soon as I graduate. That’s a big negative.
*It would ruin the ‘cohesiveness’ of the academic program I’m in.
*Upon return, I’d no longer be in the same class as my friends.
*I’m afraid I’ll end up like my father: his year off in the middle of college turned into, essentially, a six-year saga of working construction, then being a drug-addicted hippie with no money and no job.
*My parents are afraid I’ll end up like my father.
*I’m afraid I won’t want to go back to college, and therefore, won’t.

Regardless of if I’m back at school or not next year, I’m searching hard for all manner of interesting internships for this summer. After that, if I don’t end up back at school, the main thing I’m considering right now is this. It’s a work/travel program: for a small fee, they get you a work visa for up to six months, help you find housing and a job, in any number of countries. I’m considering either the Ireland or the UK program - if my parents had been supportive, I would’ve ended up at college either in Wales or England. I’d also consider volunteering on a kibbutz in Israel, which is something I’ve wanted to do for some time. But, if I do take a year off, I will need to work (see above re: loans)

And before anyone suggests it, it’s not possible to take just a semester off. It’s simply the nature of the program at my school.

Any thoughts from those who are older, wiser (or simply not me?)

2

If I were you, I’d take a year off.

I should have dropped out of college after my first disastrous semester when I was 18, but no, I stayed 2 years and wrecked my GPA, despite having no real direction. Now that I have direction, college is great, but my GPA doesn’t reflect how smart and driven I am, and when I graduate I’m going to have a lot of 'splainin to do to potential employers about the gaps in my resume. I wasted a lot of time, in denial. I wasn’t ready for college and had no real goals.

You’re young and single. You will never again have the opportunity to do stuff like this. The college isn’t going to go anywhere, it’ll be there when you’re ready. Live a little before you graduate, get stuck in a job, settle down with a husband and a couple of kids. I’m not saying there’s anything bad about marriage and kids, etc., but if you’re wanting to spend some time in a foreign country, NOW is the time to do it, while you have few responsibilities.

Lots of people take time off from school and come back. Just don’t get roped into anything long-term while you’re out of school: plan everything you take on with the knowledge that “in fall 2006, I’m going back to St. John’s.” I don’t think you’re in too much danger of chucking the idea of college altogether after taking time off because you’re so happy at your school. I think after a nice little break you’ll be refreshed and raring to go.

3

Not from my experience, but from my children’s experience, repaying student loans is a real downer. We scrimped and got accused of being cheap, but our children didn’t have loans to repay. They have thanked me, since now those friends, who seemed to have so much more money are having to repay it. Think twice before exacerbating the problem. Just a comment.

P.S. I went to a liberal arts college and yours sounds very interesting. My daughter-in-law is teaching kindergarten in a school in Houston that is using a liberal arts program. Good luck in your endeavors.

4

Well, I don’t kow you from Adam, and my only clue as to what kind of person you are stems from the two posts of yours that I have read, so I feel eminently qualified to make suggestions that will affect your life for the next 60 years or so.

If you have the financial means to take a year off school, do it. The BUNAC program looks like a great opportunity to do something that most people will never have the opportunity to do.

If you take a year off from school and do something constructive with that time, that can only help you in the future. If you don’t, you will always wonder what you missed. You already regret not having taken a year off once, that feeling will only grow if you pass up the opportunity again.

I can understand your fears of what might happen if you take the time off, but know this: Whatever ideas you have of what is going to happen to you in the next few years, they are wrong. Life just doesn’t work out the way you plan. It’s not like you plan to spend a year laying on a beach perfecting your tan; you seem to be looking for something that will enrich your life during your “vacation”. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit in with the model you have planned out for your future. Your life’s direction will change 720 degrees before you get it all straightened out in the end, so don’t close off any avenues now.

And if it all goes up in smoke, that’s what you get for taking life advice from some anonymous idiot on a message board.

5

I’d say it depends on how bad you think the risk of not going back is. And only you can really evaluate yourself on that.

I wouldn’t have been able to do it, especially not after freshmen year. I haven’t been out of school quite a year yet, and already I couldn’t imagine myself back there now for more of it. I’m afraid if I’d taken a year off, the temptation to not go back might have been too great. Making money feels so much nicer than digging yourself into debt, even if it’s worse in the long run. But I’ve watched several friends take a year off and not go back, so I’m biased about how risky the year off can be to a finished degree.

Maybe you could try taking the time off later in your school career? I had alot more invested after two or three years than I did when I only had freshmen year under my belt, and I think the temptation to stick with a summer job that offers permanence, or just to avoid ever writing another term paper, would have been easier to avoid when I was farther along.

6

NinjaChick,
I’ve read your post more than once to try to figure out why you want to take the time off from school. It appears that you’ve had a difficult time adjusting to college life “academically and socially” (your words). I don’t know if this is due to academic burnout or some inability to adapt to your new environment. If it’s the former, some time off might be helpful to have your mind on other things besides school for a while. If it’s the latter, I’m not convinced that leaving the academic environment will make it easier when you return. The classes, the studying, the exams, the need to make new social connections will still be the same a year from now. BTW, your experience as a freshman is not unique. You’ve identified the biggest risk in dropping out for a year – that you may not go back to school when your sabbatical is over. Can you guarantee to yourself that whatever you’re doing a year from now that you will stop doing it and return to the classes, the studying, the exams, etc.? If you can do that, by all means, take the year off from school and get a job or whatever you want to do. Good luck in whatever you decide.

7

I would be deeply concerned that you would lose momentum and not get back to school.

College, for most people, requires a pretty strong and savage adjustment period. It’s not like high school and academically and socially the expectations are very different.

I know from experience that might first year and a half in college I was flailing around without a real feel for what was wanted from me (this after being the top student in my high school). But midway through year two I ‘got it’ and raced through all my classes at top speed and with high marks. It went from frustrating to satisfying over the course of about 3 weeks.

My advice for anyone in your situation is to get some support system in place (friends, parents, school counselors, tutors, whatever) and stick it out. The advantages in American society of having a college degree are SO enormous (on average) that anything that threatens the acquisition of one should be avoided at all costs.

You will hear, both hear and elsewhere, success stories of people who succeeded without college, or who dropped out and later went back. These are very inspiring, I admit. But they’re the moral equivalent of professional athletes. For every one who did it there are literally hundreds (thousands?) of those who’s life path is significantly worse than it would have been had they completed their degree. Of the three friends I’ve kept up with from school who dropped out one is a low level secretary (at a college, amusingly enough), one is an itinerantly underemployed editor who lives with her friends for long stretches of time, and one is a professional who’s succeeding because Lady Chance got her a position at her firm based on Lady Chance’s influence and seniority (effectively, LC told management, ‘I bring in $XXX per year. Do a rain maker a favor and hire this person.’)

In the end, you’ll have to evaluate what you want to do and try and figure out, if you DO take a break figure out ahead of time if you’re the sort of person who has the self-discipline to go back.