Hi everyone, I am under a lot of stress right now about my college future and am feeling really unsure about what to do. I don’t feel like it’s a good idea to just talk to my mom or boyfriend about transferring closer to home because they might be extremely biased on what they believe I should do.
Okay, so some background:
During middle and high school I felt pretty depressed. I was very unhappy about how I looked, felt excluded from most of my peers (went to a very small school where most people knew each other and you go to school with the same people from basically kindergarten until graduation), and my friends always excluded me from hanging out with them even when I tried to initiate it. Fast forward to January of my senior year and it was actually time for me to do something about life after high school. I always knew I wanted to go to college for something but I believe due to being so down all the time never really considered it seriously until the last minute in my opinion. I felt really pressured by myself to choose a major so I chose speech-language pathology. It was too late to seriously apply to any four year schools as I hadn’t even taken the ACT or looked at schools so I went to my local 2 year school 20ish minutes away.
A few months later my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor and passed away 2 weeks after graduation so it was ultimately a good thing I stayed home that year to help my mom out. During that year at the 2 year school I felt unhappy and felt like I was missing out on a “true college experience” because I wanted to start my major and at least try to make friends. So I sent in my application to a 4 year school a little more than 2 hours away since that is one of the only schools in my state within a reasonable distance that had my major and also since I knew 2 people who either went to that school or had moved up there thinking I would have at least 2 friends. Fast forward another few months and I’m living with a friend from high school and things are going okay but apart from being with my boyfriend I don’t feel all that happy. I was doing okay in my classes for the most part, had people to talk to in classes but not true friends. I got involved in the club for my major and attempted other ones but ultimately didn’t have time for those. The homesickness was very hard on me though for the first few weeks and I thought it would go away with time, and it did lessen a bit, but I tried to rationalize it by saying that I needed this experience out on my own.
This past spring semester was even worse. My classes for my major and gen eds that I had to take were a lot harder, I felt a lot of stress from living in the dorms due to being surrounded by people all the time, and I had no one in my classes to talk to so I felt extremely isolated the entire semester. I also started to regret even coming to this school because I was still missing my family, in particular my mom and older brother who has Autism, and felt stressed because of problems that were going on at home that I couldn’t help with such as helping my brother.
I also ended up switching majors to Early Childhood/EC Special Education because my speech pathology classes actually made me hate the major and the profession itself. I’m starting to regret this as well only because I feel like I possibly jumped into it without properly giving myself time to think. I feel almost certain that I would be happy with this major and career, but I still feel slightly overwhelmed with my choice as well as being over 2 hours away from my family.
If I do for sure decide on EC, there’s a private college a 30 minute drive down the highway from where I live that I could easily attend. There’s classes offered there pertaining to my major that aren’t offered at my current college. I feel in a lot of ways I would be happier going there as I could live with my family and help them out, save some money and stress by not having to worry about accumulating debt by living on the dorms or paying rent and bills, as well as take more classes that interest me. The only main issues with this are finances and my boyfriend. Since it’s a private school it’s obviously more expensive than my current school. I know private schools tend to offer a lot of aid which would help as well me living at home so I don’t feel too concerned about this but debt is not something I take lightly. I feel more concerned about leaving my boyfriend as I know I would hardly ever see him. I don’t want to base my decision and possible happiness just on him, but I also don’t want to potentially ruin our relationship which means a lot to me.
Basically what I want to know is if transferring sounds like a plausible idea and if it would be worth it. I’ve been stressing myself out about this for months and I have a hard time sleeping at night because of it. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I don’t really know where to turn. Thank you and I’m really sorry about the novel this post has turned into 