<p>I am a 3rd year student at my current school (which I can't stand). My GPA is around a C average. After talking to my advisors I learned that I'm on the 5-yr graduation plan...there is no way I can complete my majors without 2 more years here.</p>
<p>The thought of continuing at my current college kills me. </p>
<p>It was initially a huge disappointment to go this school rather than the Top 15 school that was my dream (and that I was accepted to). And the initial disappointment just NEVER wore off. I'm constantly wondering "what if." </p>
<p>What can I do? I am not interested in going to grad school, because I don't have a particular course of study in mind, primarily, and I also think my grades would be a significant barrier, as an aside.</p>
<p>You just need to figure out a way to get over the dream school. That is gone, over, most people never get into their dream school anyways. Live your life for the future, not the past—start living it today. In the scheme of things, that is really such a small problem, there will be many other adverse things that come your way, it’s just life.</p>
<p>So figure out, what to do now? Dream school-out of the picture, forgotten about. If you truly hate where you’re at, find a way to transfer elsewhere. With a C average, it probably won’t be to a top school, but so what? Perhaps a change of venue/location would inspire you.</p>
<p>I don’t regret a single thing in my life, truly. Every stupid unthinking decision, every blunder or failure…has taken to me to where I am now. And I am very happy with how life has turned out. That very well might be the same for you, years down the road.</p>
<p>I refer you to this thread, on the Parents Forum:" Seeking words from the wise… I feel like I’ve screwed my whole life up. " Great words of wisdom there.</p>
<p>This is not much different than if you didn’t get a dream job, and so you did lousy at your actual job because you were too busy thinking “what if.”</p>
<p>*I am not interested in going to grad school, because I don’t have a particular course of study in mind, primarily, *</p>
<p>Interesting that you should say that. What makes you think that if you had gone to your dream school that you would have known what to study?</p>
<p>What was your dream school and where are you now?</p>
<p>Then finding out you are on the five year plan is a once in a lifetime gift. Now you have extra time to accept nothing less than the best from yourself. The only thought you need to have about your “dream school” is that they believed in your ability to do the work there, so you have no excuse to not be doing it at your current school. As a bonus, as your grades go up, you will enjoy school more, I promise. </p>
<p>Whether you know it or not, you are sabatoging yourself to prove that the dream school was the right choice and you are in the wrong place. In addition to being childish, you are taking away future choices from yourself. </p>
<p>Do you want your future choices defined by this so you can continue to pout and say, “See, I should have gone to dream school” or do you want to start saying to yourself, “I can succeed no matter the circumstances.” Which person would you hire?</p>
<p>I meant that I don’t have plans/never had plans to go to graduate school. This is not a bad thing, it just “is.” </p>
<p>Also, I don’t wish to reveal my current school or dream school for privacy purposes.</p>
<p>I read DCHurricane’s thread and he has only spent one year at college - in fact, he may not have any GPA at all since he can withdraw for medical purposes. I don’t really believe the situations are the same.</p>
<p>There are some things I don’t regret - trying my best and still getting rejected from certain schools (which I did), learning my parent’s didn’t have enough money to send me to a certain school (not true, but hypothetically I would have no problem with this)…but knowing that you’ve prepared and waited for this for years, and that the directions were in your pocket for the big day, but then they just slid out through some hole you didn’t even see so you end up getting lost and missing the show…I think that’s something to be legitimately upset about.</p>
<p>Life has a way of throwing a wrench in the best laid plans, collegebust. That’s just the way it is. For you, not going to the other school was a very large wrench.</p>
<p>A very important life skill is accepting what you have in hand and making the best of it. There are impressive stories everywhere of people who have been dealt a bad hand and through perseverence and hard work ended up with what they wanted in the end.</p>
<p>You have to ask yourself what kind of person you want to be.</p>
<p>So starting today choose to be the person who you want to be. Good luck.</p>
<p>I think you can be legitimately upset about it for, oh, about… 2 weeks. After that, you are either just indulging yourself in the “poor me” scenario, or you are depressed and using your school situation as the fall guy. Why not go see a councelor at the health center to discuss the possibility of depression. Life is what you make it. You are currently not makeing much of it. It really has nothing to do with the school and everything to do with your attitude about the school. Engage. Start off tomorrow as the first positive day in the rest of your life. Move forward in a positive way.</p>
<p>Of course it’s something to be legitmately upset about. But not for three years. And not as an excuse to do poorly in school, which is what you’ve done with it. </p>
<p>Have you spoken with a therapist about this? Have you ever been screened for depression? Not being able to let go of a disappointment is a problem. I’m not saying it’s pathological, just that it’s something you need to learn how to do because this is not the last time you will need this skill.</p>
<p>I’m concerned that this has bothered you so much, for so long and that it is still having such an impact on your life. Without minimizing your pain, surely you know that in the grand scheme of things, this is a “good” problem. You’re not in Iraq or Afghanistan, as many of your peers are; this is not a chronic illness nor is it a death sentence. </p>
<p>I don’t say these things in a tone of, “See, you should be thankful and shut up.” I say them because part of growing up is building ones resiliency. Bad things happen to everyone…why do some people handle them better than others? We used to think it was inborn temperment but research is showing that resiliency can be learned. </p>
<p>You do not want to be a person who stays stuck for years on disappointments. So much of life worth celebrating passes you by that way. You are young. As I said before, you have a choice make, well, actually lots of choices but the first one is deciding how much power you want to give disappointment in your life. Learning to grieve and truly let go is one of the best gifts you can give yourself. I encourage you to take this issue and learn with/from it.</p>
<p>I mean, trust me, I wouldn’t have been here 3 years if I didn’t start off every one thinking, this is great, I’m excited, these classes are perfect, this campus is beautiful and alive. </p>
<p>But, couldn’t it be true that sometimes you just don’t like a place, for whatever reason? And maybe it’s better to try to go somewhere else, instead of coming to the same spot and expecting different results?</p>
<p>"I think you can be legitimately upset about it for, oh, about… 2 weeks. "</p>
<p>The funny thing is I did great my first semester. I really wanted to give the place a chance.</p>
<p>Read sax’s post a couple times. Everyone gets curve balls thrown at them through life. The job you thought was yours goes to someone else. The children you expected to have don’t come because you or your spouse has physical problems. You get outbid on a house you wanted and on and on and on. The absolute worse thing you can do is to dwell on a particular situation. If you continually dwell on “what if” in the past tense you will miss the “what if” that is in the future. Use the two years to finish up on a bang instead of a whimper. Change it up. If you are living off campus, move back on. If you are living on campus, move off. If you always study in the library go study somewhere else. Absolutely meet with your advisor regularly so five years doesn’t become six. If you don’t have a great relationship with your current advisor, find one you like. You are the only person who has the ability to change your destiny. You have more control over your actions than you think.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you’re unhappy collegebust. But, I suspect it’s not because you didn’t go to your dream school. I think discussing this with a therapist would be a good idea to try to figure out what is really bothering you.</p>
<p>Okay, that’s good. You’ve identified that daily pep talks are not cutting it. Let’s cross them off the list.</p>
<p>It’s true that sometimes you don’t like a place and need to get out. It’s equally true that sometimes it’s not possible to get out at that moment or even that year. How can you incorporate that truth and move forward? It’s time for a new plan and to make that plan you need facts and support. </p>
<p>Schedule an appointment with your academic advisor. Talk about transferring, talk about staying, talk about what is truly possible and what is not. Schedule an appointment with mental health services, you need someone who is trained in helping people sort through difficult decisions and who can teach you new coping skills while you are still at your school. If you don’t like the idea of therapy, then call it coaching. Schedule an appointment with your doctor to make sure that nothing physical is going on and they can also screen you for depression. It’s time to take control of your future and that starts with taking care of your physical and mental health.</p>
<p>The absolute best thing about constructing your new plan is that you don’t have to wait for it to be in action to start feeling better. Simply taking the steps to craft it will help you feel less stuck, less trapped. You can do this.</p>
<p>Hey, I mean, maybe I just need a change of scenery. Don’t think I haven’t tried the studying in different libraries trick ;). I’m more than willing to take a leave of absence and sort everything out, but I need a pretty good plan to do that. Like, a job, a place to live, you know. Just to change it up. I think part of the reason that I keep doing badly here is that I /know/ here is not the only option. I still feel like there are other possibilities. Maybe I’m just too afraid to take that waitressing job in Oakland and live in that basement advertised on Craigslist for $300/mo, you know…even if I should…if only to feel like I’m in control of my life and that I can make anything work.</p>
<p>Have you heard of the term “geographical cure?” It’s the idea that if we go somewhere else, things will get better. Of course, the fatal flaw is that we take ourselves with us!</p>
<p>In otherwords, I know you are joking but maybe that waitressing job in Oakland is where you need to be. But before you take a leave of absence or do anything radical, you need to face the reality of where you are, right this moment. You wrote,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s no way to live. Change is always hard work and alway a little frightening, even when it’s what we want the most. It can be very tempting to just stay stuck, because at least we are familiar with that unhappiness. </p>
<p>You took a chance coming here…maybe this was the radical action that will start you on your new path?</p>
<p>Hi collegebust, you posted with a problem but none of the solutions people offered appeal to you. You probably considered them yourself. What will you do, then? And how could people on this forum help you?</p>
<p>“Have you heard of the term “geographical cure?” It’s the idea that if we go somewhere else, things will get better. Of course, the fatal flaw is that we take ourselves with us!”</p>
<p>Well, I think the appeal to a lot of people of jumping ship and going cross country to take a low wage job is this: the “going somewhere else” isn’t just “anywhere else.” It’s a place YOU choose. It’s figurative as well as literal - I can go to where I want to go. Nothing is going to stop me. You know? It’s empowering. There’s nothing wrong with taking yourself with you, after all, that’s the point. YOU take YOURSELF to…well, the edges of the world if you want. Yes, it’s romantic, naive, and all of that. But there’s some merit to it, I think.</p>
<p>Yes, of course, it does have some merit. The big down fall, the reason that there is a phrase to describe it is that once the intial excitement wears off, people find that the pain is still there even if the painful situation got left behind on the opposite coast. </p>
<p>They are still, for example, disappointed by college, angry with parents, hung up on an ex or grieving a bad marriage. To compound the problem, they often they’ve left behind the resources that they now realize they need as most low wage jobs don’t come with insurance and they certainly do not leave money left over to fund professional help on ones own. Poverty is romantic to people who are not poor but it is a highly stressful way too live. And, of course, life going on and new disappointments/pain gets added in. </p>
<p>Turning back to resililancy, part of it is learning to stop and deal with the issue at hand. Because the names of the issues will change over your life but how you deal with them will not, not unless you do the work to make that happen. Everyone, including yourself, can see it if you move but there is no move that will change your life as much as learning how to deal with disappoint will, even if no one sees it but you. You’ve given this disappointment a lot of power in your life for a long time. I hope you will take the time to find out why (ie disappointment over not going to the dream school does not explain three years of poor academic work) and to make different choices.</p>
<p>*but knowing that you’ve prepared and waited for this for years, and that the directions were in your pocket for the big day, but then they just slid out through some hole you didn’t even see so you end up getting lost and missing the show…I think that’s something to be legitimately upset about. *</p>
<p>From this description, it sounds like your family led you to believe that your dream school was possible before, during, and after the application season and then announced that the money wasn’t there within days of going to college. Is that true? If so, yes, that sounds horrific and your parents owe you a big apology (unless some sudden financial disaster happened to them). </p>
<p>That said, you can’t let this ruin your life. You have 2 years to improve your GPA. Take as many classes that you can. The more credits you take, the more you can improve on the first 3 years of grades. Take summer classes if you have to.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids, What are the odds that her parents are going to apologize to her? My best guess is very slim. Also, we’re only getting the OPs side of it because, of course, that’s the only side she knows. I think it’s important to leave some room for the possibility that there is more to this than she’ll ever know. Cementing the idea that one has been victimized and owed an apology that will most likely never come is not a good plan.</p>
<p>True that the parents may never apologize. I, too, don’t believe that someone should take on some kind of permanent victim status, which I hope I made clear in my earlier post on this thread. However, sometimes it can help be told from outsiders that one is deserving of an apology, even if one is never forth-coming. It makes the person feel like his/her issue was heard. When someone has been truly wronged, I don’t think it’s helpful to not acknowledge that the person was wronged. But, victimhood should NOT be encouraged - especially when it comes to pi$$ing away a good college alternative. :)</p>
<p>Also, I don’t even know if the hypothetical scenario I put forth in post #18 is true. I find it hard to believe that parents would deny a college choice just days before school starts unless there was some kind of major financial upheaval in the family (job loss, divorce, etc). I don’t know the facts, but more likely the bad news came after financial aid packages came in and the dream school was not affordable. That happens to a lot of kids, and that’s a different issue.</p>