I’m completely confused and uncertain about what to do next, and I would sincerely appreciate any help or advice that I can get. This is going to be a substantial amount of text, so thanks in advance to those of you who respond!
I’m currently twenty years old. I graduated high school in 2013 with a 4.0 average and AP classes. I was accepted at two private schools here in Ohio with scholarship money (Denison and Otterbein) but I was reluctant in the end because I was worried about the debt and I wasn’t even certain how much I really liked either school. I’m an indecisive person by nature, and after going to orientation at Otterbein I just sort of ended up not liking it. I went to community college for two semesters because time was running out and I was terrified of not being enrolled somewhere. The first semester, I went part time and got all A’s. The second semester, I took a heavier course load, but I suffered a nervous breakdown (lol) and my depression worsened because I was so unhappy with the environment. It got to the point where I wasn’t able to take my finals, and so my grades really sucked (they were all C’s and one D) which is something I’m obviously not proud of, but you can’t change the past so I’m not going to dwell on it. It just really blows because now those grades are on my transcript, and they don’t truly reflect who I am as a student.
I took the next two semesters off because I needed a break from community college and saved up some money working instead. Now I’m in a place where I don’t really know what to do, and I feel totally overwhelmed by it. I won some writing awards in high school (one which was national) and I always saw myself doing something with creative writing. I’m a very creative, artistic person but I’m also pretty logical–my ideas as far as what I want to “do” are always oscillating from one thing to another, but I know for a fact that I would love to go somewhere in the city, like NYU or Columbia or a school in Chicago. My concern is that I’m afraid of applying with where my grades currently stand. And while I know I will have to get some scholarship money, I don’t know if worrying about debt is sensible, or if I’m just going to have to swallow it at some point. Thoughts?