Let me first apologize for all of the information I’m about to throw at you. I’ll try to keep it as concise as possible, but I feel like you need all of the info to get a good idea of my situation.
I am 21 and have completed 3.5 years of college, majoring in psychology. I started out at a very small liberal arts college in a very rural town (School A). It was total culture shock to me when I got there. I was there for two years, but always hated it. I was functioning, but incredibly depressed, sometimes even very calmly contemplating suicide. During my sophomore year, I broke my leg pretty severely and had to miss some school. After that I was on crutches for 3 months and felt very helpless (Struggled to get to class, couldn’t go out, couldn’t do almost anything on my own) and it was then that I decided to transfer to a much more prestigious university.
My first semester at School B was amazing. I was taking hands on courses that I loved and I was learning so much. But then my advisor told me I needed to buckle down for spring semester and start taking care of core credits and required courses. I hated them. I felt so lifeless and unfulfilled. I fell into severe depression, struggling to get out of bed and feeling much like I had during my time at School A, potentially even worse.
At the end of my first year at School B, I decided I was not going to go back and instead began taking online courses through School C. During this time, I volunteered, I worked full time, I read many, many books and really took time to develop myself and reflect on who I was and what I wanted. I was very happy during this time. However, when I went to schedule my online courses for spring semester (the current upcoming semester), none of the five courses I needed to graduate were offered. When I contacted my advisor, she basically told me to fill my schedule with electives (that I don’t need) and to try again next semester, with no guarantee on when these courses would be offered again. I felt so panicked and so stuck.
I started looking into other options to complete my degree because, even though it feels worthless (I don’t see myself using this degree in the future/ I don’t need it for what I want to do), I have one semester left and I feel like I should just finish it so that I have that piece of paper that everyone says you need and appease my family. I looked into returning to either School A or School B. School B said it would likely take another 3 semesters for me to graduate, and School A said I could likely graduate in the spring, but likely summer at the latest. School A is clearly my better option since I just want to be done with this.
I was readmitted to school A, but now I feel this crushing sense of being trapped and I haven’t even started the semester. I hate the idea of not being able to work full time and taking these stupid, BS classes that I don’t care about. In addition, because I haven’t lived in the dorms at School A for six semesters (I did 5 semesters at School A and one semester in the dorms at School B), they are saying I do not qualify for off-campus housing. However, because I was taking online courses, I already have been leasing an apartment 15 minutes from School A. I cannot break my lease without paying crazy penalties and I cannot afford to pay the outrageous room and board fee on top of my current rent.
I just feel like nothing is going my way with this college stuff and I am wondering if its even worth it at this point. What do I do about housing? What do I do about college in general? How do I get over the dread I already feel about going back to school? If I don’t finish, how do I face my family?
I really don’t mean to sound whiny or blame my distaste for higher education on depression, but its becoming a big issue and I just feel so helpless/stuck about what to do.