<p>Okay I've been at my school for 3 semesters now and I can't stand it anymore. It's a huge party school and I don't party anymore. I thought I wanted to move out to the country and be away from my parents but going here was a huge mistake. All through high school I never drank and my first semester here I was so lost that I decided to party to make friends and I destroyed my gpa and ended up on academic probation. I was so depressed and suicidal, I even attempted it at one point when I was drunk. When I went home during winter break I started dating someone I knew in high school and he helped me a lot and I nearly doubled my gpa in the spring. I still felt so alone and depressed at my school. It's not just the social aspect of this place that sucks, because you have to be greek to have any kind of social life... It's an awful school, completely inefficient in everything from meal plans to parking, doesn't support it's students AT ALL, and has just the lowest morale of any place I've ever been to. Even my professors and people I've had visit have said that this place is so miserable and how nobody smiles except on weekends when they're about to get drunk. I'm suffering financially, academically and socially here. I have no friends, and can't get a job for my life. Everything in the town is going out of business and the only people who can get jobs are locals because when places find out you are a student they won't hire you since they know you're going to leave for breaks. I go home every weekend, I don't care that it's a 2 hour drive home. And every time I get back in the car to go home I just cry or get so irritable and angry at everyone. I've never been this depressed in my life. I can't eat, sleep, or motivate myself to do well. I feel like why should I even bother to do well in a place that I hate and hasn't helped me one bit. </p>
<p>I'm sorry this post is so long but I've just been holding all this in forever. My basic dilemma is I want to transfer to a school near my hometown for the spring semester, but I lost my financial aid from when I did bad my freshman fall semester. And my school won't release my transcript until my tuition is paid. I'm in the process of appealing the cancellation of my aid but the school I want to apply to closes it's transfer admissions in 14 days. If I don't get into this school, I can't bring myself to suffer a 4th semester here. people always say oh just give it another semester it will get better, well I've given it 3 and all it's doing is making me the worst person I've ever been in my life and putting me in incredible debt. And if I don't get my aid back I won't even be able to come back here anyway. </p>
<p>People always say taking a semester off is a terrible thing, but I know myself and I've come so far in school that I'd never not come back. In fact I'm already a semester ahead, I'll be a junior in the spring, because I came to college with a full semester's worth of A/P credits. I feel like I need time to get a job, save up some money for an apartment/new car, get re-focused, and save money for my practicum because I'm an anthropology major and I want to spend a summer studying in Africa for a program that I need to graduate, but it costs a lot of money that I won't make at my current school. And I'll probably take a few courses at my community college until the fall when I go back to being a full term student. Does anybody have any suggestions or has anyone else ever taken a semester off?</p>