I’m male from Maine. I went to a very prestigious university of a year but flunked out. I had a GPA of <1.0 at the end of the year of 2 semesters. The reason is due to the fact that I had an undiagnosed mental illness in my brain (runs in the family), and the stress and pressure made me curl up in a ball and just give up on myself. The environment was also very unhealthy for me as it felt huge and unsupportive and lonely which made it feel like nobody wanted me to succeed, so I had it ingrained in my mind that I wanted out and into a closer community. This made it so I didn’t want to try as I knew I’d be learning somewhere else in the future. A Huge mistake I understand but my mental illness was driving me full force this year, and I want to prove to myself that I will not let it control me. I understand I’m in a pickle, but I also know that with my high school experience I should be able to thrive in a college environment, and I truly want to pursue that. I don’t want to take a year off or just not go back to school, I want to live out my potential and never look back and wonder “what if I had just made an effort to get back in and correct my mistakes”. The thought of having no closure and not having the ability to come back and prove to myself that my illness doesn’t drive me devastates me and I believe that the only way to get out of my slump is to get back on track to pursue a greater, healthier, smarter future. I have certainly learned from my mistake that I could assume that not every little thing effects the rest of my college career in a huge way. Now I want to take classes for a year somewhere small, anywhere really, and then transfer out into a better fitting 4-year university having beefed up my poor grades and giving me the opportunity to prove myself a better person I had succumbed to in the last year. What would my (very limited) options be now? A year from now? No institution wants kid with a GPA below 2.0 let alone 1.0. Is there any path for me to be able to attend a 4 year college by fall 2018?
Your best route would be to go to community college and earn a good GPA there and then transfer to a four year college.
Your first step should be to ask the first institution if it is possible to get a retroactive Medical Withdrawal from some of those bad-grade classes. If that can be done, your GPA would not be quite so awful.
Once your mental health issues are under control, you could consider asking the first institution about re-enrolling. This would be particularly useful if they offer grade replacement for some of the bad-grade classes. Depending on how many classes you need to re-take, one semester there could make a big difference in your transfer options.
If neither of those options are open to you - or if they just plain don’t appeal to you - then you are left with finding an open admission college or university that fits your family budget. Most often that is a local community college. Choose one that has formal articulation agreements with at least one four year institution that offers your probable major so that you are guaranteed admission to at least one college or university after you have finished at the community college.