How do I overcome the pain of not being able to go away for college?

College Life
1

<p>I am currently in the second semester of my sophomore year. My grades are excellent and I mean they are really good right now during this semester. During the first 3 semesters? Not the same story.</p>

<p>I was pushed into majoring in something I hated, lacked the backbone to stand up against my parents and as a result my grades suffered. As a result, while right now I should have been applying for transfer, I am not because I cannot meet the required minimum for my state university.</p>

<p>Rather than being like most kids, moving into a dorm, and getting ready to enjoy the best years of my life I am living a terrible social life. I have tried to connect with students in my local university but most are part time students, live in the county away from mines.</p>

<p>In high school I had a bad start due to tons of family problems and poor counseling. The grades on average were very low for most kids and a lot of kids just ended up at tier 3 to tier 4 schools, a lot ended up in the military too. No sports at my school and not a lot of opportunities. Parents often restricted me (by force) from volunteering or participating in after school activities.</p>

<p>Transcript looked weak, despite blossoming later on in high school my grades were not good enough for the state flagship. Due to very weak counseling and no help at all from everyone, and parents shooting down every idea (wanted to apply to a liberal arts college, they took it literally and thought I mean I wanted to major in liberal arts, yelled at me for wanting to do so and shot down the idea fast), I ended up at a university 5 minutes from my house.</p>

<p>ANYWAYS. Now it is a new day, I have managed to tell my overbearing parents to get lost, they have taken their hands off my life permanently.</p>

<p>Thing is, I HATE the college I am at right now. I really really do hate it here but I do not know what to do. I am going to college in the same place I went to high school in. I am depressed here despite the good grades.</p>

<p>I have 50 hours of college credit right now but do not know what to do. I feel that it is too late to transfer now and my GPA is like a 2.8 or so. What can I do?</p>

<p>Do students even transfer colleges after they have 60 credit hours?</p>

2

<p>I wanted that independence, that feel, that happyness of finally being out on my own but was not able to get it.</p>

<p>I just feel so down for it.</p>

3

<p>One of my friends has over 70 units and he’s transferring next semester. It’s not abnormal. There are tons and tons of people who do not graduate in 4 years, many take longer. </p>

<p>It sounds like you’re in desperate need of a change so I say go for it. Talk to a counselor at your school and see what they can do for you. I recommend talking to several counselors actually. I’ve found that all seem to know something different and have different ideas so it helps to get the different viewpoints. Some may be of more help to you than others. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

4

<p>Typically, most people have 60 credits at the end of sophomore year. That is also when many people transfer from a two-year to 4 year school, so you would not be unusual at all. Your problem will pretty much be financial. If your parents are hands-off, how will you get money for school? You won’t be able to borrow much at all. Most schools do not give super generous fin. aid to transfers. Some do, but for really stellar stats, etc. Do a lot of research on schools that may offer very good money to you. You may not be able to attend a brand name school, but you may find a wonderful school that you will love.</p>

5

<p>First of all, college is not the “best years of your life.” If they were, it would be depressing because that would mean everything is downhill from age 22. Ugh.</p>

<p>Colleges will indeed transfer you after you have 60 credits - in fact, I don’t think there’s a limit for when you can transfer to most places, except that usually schools will require you to earn at least 30 credits and be in residence (that just means taking classes) for at least one academic year to qualify to graduate from that school. Many places may not accept all of your credits from other schools, so even if you spent 3 years somewhere else you may have to spend 1.5 to 2 years at your new school.</p>

<p>What is making you unhappy at your current school? Is it simply because this is not where you expected to be and you want to be doing something different? If that’s the case, you may need to simply change your attitude. Start thinking of ways to make the best of your experience - what student groups are there at your current college? Are there classes in which you are really interested? Start striking up conversations with your classmates and schoolmates before and after class, in the student center, etc. Become content with where you are - at least for now. Many, many students go to schools within 30 minutes of their hometowns and enjoy it. I did.</p>

6

<p>I’m sorry but your post just smells of blame for everyone but yourself. Maybe you should start taking responsibility for your own actions and handle the situation. You have a 2.8 GPA at what you claim to be a 3rd tier school. My question would be why is your GPA so low if you believe you are such a capable student? Why not just finish school on scheduled time from your current school, graduate with a much higher GPA and then look for a job. At that point you can move to your own apartment and work. You could live in any neighborhood your salary affords you to live. After some time consider applying to grad school either somewhere close to where you are working so you can attend part time or you can apply to a universities you have been dreaming about. The only one holding you back from doing what you want is you. I would suggest getting a handle on your grades now because who are you going to blame when you can’t get accepted to the great grad program? Life is what YOU make it so start living it in the best way possible and stop blaming anything and everyone for your situation.</p>

<p>I assume you are about 20 years of age. Just think about what is the most feasible plan for this moment in time. Will a tranfer to another mediocre school really change your life or will it result in alot of debt and additional stress? Think about how these decisions will really effect you in the years to come not just on the next sixty Friday and Saturday nights.</p>

7

<p>I agree with Moms. You need to realize that if you want to be on your own you also need to “own” your decisions and their results. Life is not always going to be fun; at times it is going to truly suck. But too keep saying that your parents or your school is responsible for your situation is not realistic. You are now responsible, so you need to look at where you want to end up and then figure out how to get there. It may be ugly on the route and even once you get there you may not like it; but then pick a new goal and move on. You need to decide what is most important and focus on that and ignore the other ‘noise’ in your life.</p>