<p>I'm just ending my sophomore year at a small liberal arts school in Missouri called Truman State University. No one's ever heard of it but it sometimes gets ranked the 2nd best college in the state after WashU.</p>
<p>I can't stand it here anymore. I really hate the location, students, and just the overall vibe of this place. It's in a tiny town with nothing to do and I don't fit in here at all. I really wanted to get out of Missouri and the midwest after high school but I ended up stuck here. I came here because the academics and professors are good and it's very affordable and I got some scholarships.</p>
<p>After my freshman year I had about a 3.5 GPA and REALLY wanted to just take time off for a while and then transfer somewhere else, because I just could not stand this place and I was questioning whether or not I wanted to keep studying what I was studying (physics). My parents wouldn't hear of it though and said if I didn't go back they would never pay for any future college expenses if I ever wanted to go back to school.</p>
<p>So I went back and now it's the end of my sophomore year and basically endured it out again, hating myself for being here most of the time. I lacked a lot of motivation and didn't even really try in my classes and my GPA has now dropped to around 3.1.</p>
<p>What should I do? I really want to transfer to somewhere where I'll be happy. My parents aren't terrible and I think if I talk to them about it enough I can convince them to let me try something, though finances will be a large issue.</p>
<p>I'm thinking about just moving to somewhere cool like California, Oregon, or Florida and going to a community college and working a job. Then I'd get my GPA up and hopefully gain residency and then transfer to a college that would actually be right for me and what I want to study. It would also give me time to figure out if I really want to devote my life to physics or if I find something else.</p>
<p>Do you think I should try something like this or do you think it will just end up in disaster like everything else in my life? Any particular colleges I should look into?</p>
<p>btw as far as high school went, I was an IB diploma graduate with around a 3.3 unweighted GPA (4.0 weighted).</p>
<p>If you were to move to California and go to community college for some extra years to bring up your gpa, you would end up being disqualified from the UC system because students with a combo of 4-year college units and California Community College units that exceed junior status (slightly different numbers at each UC, but around 86 semester units) means the UC will reject your application immediately.</p>
<p>As for the CSUs, even if you manage to get in-state residency, you would also have a few difficulties in that until you have more CCC units than units from any other school, you will be considered a non-local transfer. Meaning, you will have to have around a 3.3 for competitive CSUs and even higher for the very impacted CSUs like CSU Fullerton. </p>
<p>I’m also uncertain what you need to do to get in-state status for CA, but it isn’t merely just living here a year. For example, the UC policy states that “if you are an undergraduate under the age of 24 and your parent(s) are not California residents, it is unlikely that you will be able to qualify as a California resident for purposes of tuition and fees.” I don’t know the CSU requirement, but I’m sure some web searches should pull up that info. Since your parents don’t live in CA and you are under 24 years of age, I think you are probably out of luck for in-state residency.</p>
<p>In other words, I don’t think the CA route is going to be smooth sailing. CA isn’t that cool these days, unemployment is very high here and cost of living (rent, food) is insane compared to midwest prices.</p>
<p>Can you transfer to an inexpensive in-state college? Are you certain it is the school itself that is the problem? Maybe you need to take a leave of absence from your college and work fulltime for a year or two–you may find that college life was a lot more enjoyable and comfortable than you gave it credit for.</p>
<p>alright, well first off I’m not sure what “semester units” are but at my current school I only have about 47-50 credits…wouldn’t I have enough room through the year before I hit 86? can’t I just not take that many classes?</p>
<p>whatever though, I understand it wouldn’t be simple and I’d have to work out the details…but if CA doesn’t work I could always try somewhere else. I mean I just want to get out of the midwest, it doesn’t have to be to California.</p>
<p>finally in regards to “you may find that college life was a lot more enjoyable and comfortable than you gave it credit for”, this is basically what my parents and some others said after freshman year when I realized how unhappy I was at this school, basically got called a spoiled brat countless times. I worked over the summer at wal-mart and I actually really enjoyed it. I wanted to just stay there and keep working for a while until I figured things out in regards to my education but my parents wouldn’t hear it and I was forced to go back and suffer at this hellhole of a school. I was WAY happier working over the summer than when I came back, and I came back not motivated to do well at all. I don’t want that to happen again for junior year, and then it’l be too late to transfer, and my entire college experience will have been a cesspool of misery, just like high school. I never should have done the IB program either, I would have been so much happier in AP. Whatever. I just want to make a ****ing right decision for once where I can feel happy and content with myself and not like a failure.</p>
<p>On Monday, walk over to the health center on campus and make an appointment with a mental health counselor. You need to find out if you have a clinical type depression or if you are just suffering from academic burn-out. Ask the counselor what you need to do to take a leave of absence from Truman State. That is better than withdrawing. With a leave of absence you can take a semester or a year to sort out your life, and if you decide that the fastest way the future you want is by returning for two years, you can do that without much hassle.</p>
<p>The counselors at Truman State have helped students like you before. They will have suggestions for dealing with your parents. I think that taking time off from college can be a really good idea. Some parents are afraid that if their kids take time off the kids will never go back and will end up with terrible futures. That could be what your parents are thinking. If you have a solid plan such as “I will work for 15 months and I will save money and I will think about my possible major and my long-term career goals, and then I will go back to school in September 2012.” your parents might be a lot more willing to listen to you.</p>
<p>As for moving to another state, getting a job, establishing residency, and then going to college in that state, well that isn’t such a bad idea. However, you will almost certainly have to become fully supporting and to live in that state for 12 months before enrolling in school. That means you will need to have some money to live on while you are job hunting, house hunting, and generally getting your new life started. Do you have enough cash to pay for your move? If you don’t, you may need to live at home and work for a while to save up enough money so you can afford to move!</p>
<p>Many people find working for a living to be much more compelling than studying. That is OK. Companies like WalMart are constantly on the look out for smart hard-working people to promote from cashier to manager and on up the line. As some point you probably will want a college degree if you stay with that company because moving to higher levels of management will most likely require it. However you could conceivable complete a degree by studying part-time and/or online while you work, rather than leaving a job in order to study full-time.</p>
<p>The folks in the Career Center at Truman State should also have some ideas for you. Stop by there too, and ask for help with getting your life on track.</p>
<p>Right out of high school I went to the University of Delaware because I got a full scholarship there… which is actually a pretty good school but I absolutely hated it (kind of small, COLD, boring). I went from having a hs GPA of a 4.0+ to a GPA of around a 1.5 after one semester. Obviously I was put on academic probation and withdrew from all 4 of my classes in the Spring semester for no reason. I tried to stay another year and ended up bumping up my GPA to only a 2.0. All in all after 2 years of wasting time at someplace I hated, I had 22 credits worth of a terrible GPA.</p>
<p>So I moved to southern CA and have been going to a community college here for 3 years and working to support myself. It took me a while to get my act together but I was just accepted to 2 CSU schools and 2 UC schools so far (all of which are completely paid for by CA’s extensive financial aid). But I’ve also been rejected from 2 UCs for having too many credits (92) to transfer. It really all depends on where you want to go and what for since all the schools have different requirements and I’m sure every state varies.</p>
<p>Though I’m on a 7 year plan for my B.S. I don’t really regret the decision I made because I love my life here. If transferring is something you REALLY want to do then you have to put everything you have into it. When you hate the college you’re at, I know it’s really hard to do well but TRUST ME, don’t slack off. I’ve literally had to get a GPA of a 3.8 over 3 years of being a full time student to offset my 2.0.</p>
<p>If you can suck it up and do well for the next two years, just work really hard to finish there and then you can go ANYWHERE you want. But if you really can’t stick it out, just know that it can be a serious uphill battle.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t feel like a failure, or that all your decisions are wrong. No one is wrong all the time! If you feel unhappy and hate yourself you really need to speak with someone.</p>
<p>You sound like you are pretty stressed out, relax, if your gpa dropped to 3.1 you are still in decent shape. You want to transfer anyway, and a 3.1 will get you in to alot of schools.</p>
<p>Why do you plan on going to community college to raise your GPA? Some people will of course disagree but GPA isn’t that important. Spending extra years raising your GPA to go back to a university may be counter productive when you could transfer to a different one now.</p>
<p>I am not going to tell you not to transfer, but I will say that the grass is not always greener on the other side.</p>
<p>Do you really want to transfer to a community college in a totally different state that you either never been to or don’t really know well? You will probably be paying out of state fees for at-least one year. On top of that, you want to work on top of doing all that? </p>
<p>You may not like your current university, but you completed half of what you need for a bachelor’s degree (if you attended the two years as a full-time, 30-credits a year student). Why not suck it up, and finish the two years at the university you know well, and (as you stated) is pretty affordable.</p>
<p>You always have the rest of your life to have fun and move wherever you want to move to.</p>
<p>thanks for the replies. First off, happymom- some have said I have mental issues but I’m actually fine (lulz). I still might take that advice and ask a counselor about this though. As far as the plan itself goes, just to clarify, I’m thinking like…I’d move somewhere and go to CC paying out of state tuition for the CC (which hopefully will still be very cheap), then once residency is established transfer to a good school and pay in-state tuition there and hope I can still afford it. I’d have to rely on my parents initially and convince them to let me do this but once I’m there I think I’d be able to hold down a job while in CC and hopefully become more or less fully supporting myself.</p>
<p>kill- thanks for the info, that’s cool to see someone’s actually done something like this. Honestly the thought of it taking me 6-7 years to get a B.S. doesn’t bother me that much, I’d rather spend time figuring out what i want to do and enjoy myself a bit.</p>
<p>gaston- the main point of going to a CC for a while would be to establish residency and get in-state tuition in some state. Hopefully my CC GPA would be awesome though and that would just be an added bonus. I don’t think there’s any good OOS schools I can afford just doing a direct transfer, especially since transfer students cant really get scholarships. If you know of any though I’d certainly consider them. thanks for the help though anyway.</p>
<p>not- I really hate it here and honestly I could end up with a really terrible GPA if I keep half-heartedly doing physics. I’ll probably get raped in Quantum Mechanics and E&M if I don’t have the proper motivation. I don’t want to end up graduating with a physics degree with a poor GPA. If I don’t go to physics grad school there’s not really anything to do with a bachelors. I don’t even know if I really want to do physics anyway.</p>
<p>princess- meh. I’d just have to come back here to this place I hate. I’ve been wanting out of this place since practically the first month of coming here.</p>
<p>It may be very hard to establish in-state residence if you are studying. You need to verify the CA policies about that one. In many states, if you move there for school, you will be considered OOS until you complete your bachelor degree.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in California my whole life. I went to a community college and transferred to a UC for political science. I was hoping to use it to go to law school. After graduating, I’ve found the job market to be horrible, so horrible that you will not be paid enough to live in California since the living expenses here are ridiculous. I’ve also found that my political science degree is useless…and so are many other degrees in social sciences and art. </p>
<p>I interned and worked at a couple of law firms, which destroyed my dreams of being an attorney…I met a lot of new attorneys and recent law graduates who had $200,000 in loan debt and they were all fighting just to get $50,000 attorney jobs. They’re also having these loans extended for 30 years, in other words, they’re paying mortgages while ending up without a house. These are also students graduating from law schools ranked in the 60s-100s…I was expecting to go to a law school in that range. I heard it’s not much better for students coming out of the top 20 law schools either. California is just over-saturated with attorneys.</p>
<p>I am now attempting to go back and receive a second bachelors in something more useful, electrical engineering and computer science. I am very afraid of my future and career prospects. California’s unemployment rate is ridiculously high and it seems as if everyone is “overqualified.” </p>
<p>First, I would check with a school health counselor about your mental well-being. Your drop in grades and stated feelings seem like depression to me…I was never medically diagnosed, but I went through a similar phase at one point…4.0 student in IB dropping to a 3.0 and then lower…the reason I went to community college. </p>
<p>Second, friends and partying and a social life should be second to your career. That, I learned in college and if I could, I would go back and give it all up to get a couple more .1s on my GPA.</p>
<p>Third, physics is a great field to continue studying…don’t think of becoming an activist and such and ending up going into a useless field like political science. You’ll just become more depressed when you graduate and realize you have to pay thousands of dollars for something that can’t even get you a decent job…and I said job, not career. I wanted to become a pro-bono attorney for a couple of years before going into environmental law…HAH! 200k on top of the loans I have to pay off for my bachelors? NO THANKS! I also worked in bankruptcy law so I really know how bad it is over here.</p>
<p>The grass is actually pretty yellow over here in California…literally too since it’s been raining so damn much.</p>
<p>Yeah OP you’re on the right track with physics because barely anyone wants to major in that. I was originally a Bio major (a dime a dozen especially in CA) and I decided to stay at my CC another year and finish the pre-reqs for Bioengineering so I can transfer to a UC with an accredited engineering program instead. This opens up my opportunities immensely because a ton of jobs don’t even care what type of Eng degree you have. With your physics major, you should consider getting a minor or even a double major in some branch of math since you’re going to be pretty far along in it also. At least, that’s what I would do if I were you to give yourself more employment opportunities down the line.</p>