Taking a year off after freshman year?

I am currently in my second semester of my freshman year and I am thinking about taking a gap year. First off I want to say that I am at currently at a huge 4 year university and the reason that I want to take a break or even transfer isn’t because I don’t like it here. Since I have been here I have made some of the most amazing friends and memories. Even though I go to a big school I’ve meet so many people and I have enjoyed my time here.

The reason I want to take a gap year is because I want to change my major but I am not sure to what and I don’t want to spend money on classes that I might not need. I wanted to Major in Fashion Merchandising for years but the college I go to puts you right into the program and Ive come to realize that I don’t want to do that anymore. Since this realization my grades and motivation to do good in school has fallen considerably, Last semester I was on the deans list but this semester I am barely floating by,

The other reason I am considering leaving is because I hate where I live. I love the college that I go to and I am pretty far away from home but I hate the state that I live in. I lived here my entire life and I want to experience somewhere new. I don’t think I can live here for another year. The only problem is that I have no idea where to transfer to mainly because I don’t know what I want to change my major to. I was contemplating moving somewhere, getting a job and taking online classes until I figure out my major! Does anyone have any advise?

As far as changing your major goes (FYI, I have almost no experience in this, but I’m a high school senior who is taking the second semester of this year to carefully choose a major), I’d suggest looking up a bunch of online “Intro to _____” classes in fields you think you’d be interested in (resources like edX, MIT OpenCourseware, iTunesU, etc.) and watching all/most of the lectures.

However, if you have no idea what you’re interested in, there’s really no point in paying for expensive classes you may not need, so in that case, you have to do something else. Are you looking to take a gap year or transfer out? Both?