<p>Thanks for the advice again. My parents are pretty good at manipulating me to get me to stay. They are overbearing, controlling people. </p>
<p>I am strongly considering taking out a loan to live on campus at my current school. Transferring would be a bit radical at this stage of my college life being that I'm over half way through plus I have a scholarship.</p>
<p>On the other side, if I finish college and am debt free, I can pretty much go anywhere (out of this miserable hick town) and start a completely new life. Question is, how easy will it be to fit in and find friends in a new place without an institution such as college? Will having a miserable college life give me poorer prospects in the future? </p>
<p>My prospects AFTER college will determine whether I can endure a year and a half more misery before I leave this place and start my real life.</p>
<p>You might feel a lot better about your remaining time at your current school if you get a dorm or apartment. Living on your own would be an adventure for you.</p>
<p>Most people keep in touch with a few college friends and might even get together occasionally, but your college social life doesn't carry over into your job situation. Most people move away and move on. Tons of students graduate and move to a new city where they know no one and they meet friends at work, their apartment complex, the gym, at church and by participating in hobbies. However, the way you interact with people will stay with you, so if you have poor people skills in high school and college, you most likely will have poor people skills in your job also.</p>
<p>What field are you planning to work in bchris? Are you considering graduate or professional school?</p>
<p>I suspect your big problem is going to a not so hot acadmic school in a low life town. Many people would find it very difficult to be happy int this sort of place. You seem to be surrounded by people who don't have much in the way of academic interests and you have academic interests.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the easiest time to make friends is in school. You can do so in the work force but you don't have quite the same opporutities that you would in a school situation. </p>
<p>I'd seriously consider graduate school in another state. Preferably near a big city (maybe even in a big city.) This will give you the second chance you need to make a life in a place you want to be at. </p>
<p>This is why "fit" is so important when making a college selection. I'd say it's the most important thing of all in school selection.</p>
<p>This will be tough for you to accept but your life is what you make of it. No one likes to hang around a mopey kid who lives with his parents. If you dont like UAFS then transfer, do something, be proactive. The reason people have a different college experience is because they become more mature and change themselves, if you keep doing the same thing you're going to get the same results.</p>
<p>pfft stop thinking; do. You know the conversation you imagine having with the hot girl in class? Walk up to her, have it. You see some other dude whose academically interested, introduce yourself. Imagine it from their perspective - just a nice guy trying to find his way around. Even if you initially fail in your endeavors, try again.
Oh an dont commit suicide, stay alive, buy a gas guzzling SUV and contribute to global warming (i hate snow).</p>
<p>So maybe I should get my bachelors here, try to make the best of it that I can, then go for my masters in a place that I really WANT to be in? Doesn't sound like a bad idea if I have a full time job that would allow me to support such a move.</p>
<p>I strongly agree with the person who said the biggest part of my problem is going to a low-life school in a low-life town. UAFS is not the kind of place smart kids would go. Not saying there's no smart people there, I'm sure there is. Its just they are fewer and farther between than a more academically oriented school. UAFS is a school that locals go who are not intelligent enough or did not have the ambition in high school to get into anywhere decent (like OU). </p>
<p>Being that this is the situation, I am beginning to wonder whether living on my own would change anything as far as friendships go. If I want to remember what I did last night, they aren't going to want me around anyways. Keep in mind I am not totally against alcohol, I just prefer it in moderation and do not want to be a part of the binge drinking scene. I am still going to look at the cost/debt of getting an apartment or moving on campus, because I strongly think the independence will give me the stamina boost I need to be a bit more attractive to people. The truth is, as was said, Nobody wants to be around a mopey kid living with his parents.</p>
<p>The ONLY reason I chose UAFS is because it was the cheap way out (i.e. scholarship, living at home). My parents weren't going to support me going through school so I had to find another way to do it. I knew that I couldn't work a 60 hour per week job to do it AND make good grades so that was a last resort option. Debt didn't sound like a good idea at the time but looking back I would have made a different decision.</p>
<p>My post is going to sound fairly similar to everyone else's but I'll throw in my two cents.I was always a fairly shy kid in school but I forced myself to meet people and eventually everything fell into place(friends, gf's, etc) You cannot let life happen to you-- your life will not change on its own. Trust me, I was depressed as well (not at your level however-- i would really recommend therapy), but I decided enough was enough; I simply didn't want my life to suck anymore. Period. Out of all of the people at your school, there has to be someone similar to you and I'm sure many people have told you this. my aim sn is the same as my username if you ever want to talk.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So maybe I should get my bachelors here, try to make the best of it that I can, then go for my masters in a place that I really WANT to be in? Doesn't sound like a bad idea if I have a full time job that would allow me to support such a move.
[/quote]
My 2 cents worth, but this is a BAD idea. IMHO what you're doing here is just hiding from making a decision and taking action.</p>
<p>Talking about what may or may not happen 1.5 years from now is not fixing your life; it allows you to feel like you're doing something when all you've done is tuckered down for another 1.5 years of misery.</p>
<p>And lets look at some of the assumptions here. How are you going to work full time and go to grad school? Furthermore talk to grad students; it's nowhere near the life of an undergrad where you take a variety of classes and meet a bunch of people. Grad school is focused, you see the same handful of people from your major in all the classes, and people are more focused on getting thru the program than in the social aspects compared to undergrad.</p>
<p>What I think you should do is meet with a counselor at your school and come up with a plan to change your life in the next 3 months. Putting a near-term deadline on it means you're really going to do something rather than passively wait for the future 2 years from now to bring you a better life.</p>
<p>To me it seems like you're just procrastinating and waiting for an opportunity to suddenly start "a completely new life" and change 180. That's impossible, you can't become a new person overnight.</p>
<p>Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, but in my opinion you're just blaming it on the "low-life school", "low-life town" or your parents. Of course, living on-campus or in a big city makes things a bit easier but in the end it's your personality that matters. You can be happy anywhere but not without putting some effort into it yourself.</p>
<p>I definitely agree happiness takes work. Sometimes you need the push of getting away from parents and living in a brand new city to make those changes. You wont change over night but moving away will probably be a great start.</p>
<p>It seems like the OP is an introvert and living w/ parents is not helping. It seems as though you def. need to break the comfort zone! I know living with parents can be stifling/ too comfortable.</p>
<p>Take a risk.</p>
<p>You should probably either move out or decide to make a serious change.</p>
<p>I have a very similar story to yours. I had a few casual friends in high school but no close ones and I was not well-liked by the general student population, but I sustained myself by thinking that when I went to college it would all become magically better. Well of course, what happened was roughly the same thing that happened in high school...I had a dozen or so casual friends which eventually dwindled down to pretty much no casual friends once I switched majors and stopped seeing them every day. </p>
<p>I considered transferring several times, but I would have been transferring at the end of my third year and it just didn't seem worthwhile to me to do it - I figured a lot of my credits wouldn't transfer at this point and most schools require you to earn half your credits at that school to get a degree from that school anyway, so it would've set me back at least a year. So I decided it was best to just stick it out and I went looking for clubs to join. This hasn't resulted in any new friendships yet but at least I get a new set of familiar faces to see once or twice a week.</p>
<p>I agree with your assessment that it's probably not a good idea to transfer at this point, especially if graduating (nearly) debt-free means you have more options to pursue living where you want, doing what you want, going to grad school, etc. I'd say you should try to get involved with different organizations on campus when you go back, and look into trying to move on campus for the next year. The living expenses don't seem to be that high so even if you did take out a small loan, it would hardly be crippling. I don't know what sort of job you have, but perhaps it's possible to get one that's on/near campus where a lot of your co-workers would be fellow college students.</p>