<p>I actually just got back here from spring break, which I spent at home with my family and friends. It was the experience of going back home that made me realize that the relationships I have here aren’t friendships–they’re just “working relationships” or acquaintances. As I made the shift of being in the company of friends for a week to being here again, I realized that I’m not sure being here is worth the effort.</p>
<p>One of the problems is that I actually don’t have any time for clubs. I find that I spend almost all my time studying or doing homework–out of necessity. The “issue” is that I’ve managed to reach graduate math courses as a sophomore, and suffice it to say they’re a lot of work.</p>
<p>I was able to handle this emotionally just fine at my old school because I already had good friendships formed, and when I really needed a break I could head on home for a weekend, for instance. I’m finding it’s really hard to keep up my old academic performance and standards and develop a new social life simultaneously–in fact, it’s not possible.</p>
<p>To be clear, it’s not the workload itself that’s getting me but rather the need to do all this work and develop a social life at once. I just don’t have time for both, so it seems if I stay here I’m going to either be just stellar academically but have almost no social life (i.e., I won’t be happy) or I could have a social life but not keep up to my academic standards. The thing is that in the latter case what was the point of coming here in the first place when I could have stayed at my old school and had both stellar academic performance and a tight-knit group of friends? The whole idea of transferring was that I’d take even more advanced coursework here, etc. In this plan I failed to take into account the human element, the necessity of developing a new social life.</p>
<p>I’m going to talk to my parents tomorrow to see what they think. I doubt I’m actually going to quit early this semester, but it’s possible I won’t return here next semester. I’m actually considering a slightly less extreme version of what I proposed earlier: dropping one or two classes, staying here with less than a full load, and using the extra time to try to develop socially here in a way that I can’t with my current intense course schedule. There are subtle issues involved in this, though, not the least of them being that I may not retain my financial aid here if I have fewer than 15 credit hours.</p>
<p>Edit:</p>
<p>I don’t believe I’m depressed, but I’m unhappy with my situation and the unhappiness seems to be escalating with time.</p>