Essentially, I was written up for two occasions of Alcohol and physical abuse. I did not hurt my peer but i did put him in a headlock. Same incident happened two times. I currently have a 4.0 GPA taking 4 courses. They are allowing me to finish this semester, but I am then suspended for the spring semester in 2017. I was looking to transfer before hand, but the suspension makes it significantly more difficult. Currently my options are figuring out how to transfer to another college for fall 2017, or I accept the suspension, and stay at my school for another year and transfer after for Fall 2018. I received a 2000 on my SAT, and my High School GPA was 3.7 at a very difficult school. Would applying to school that allows me to live off campus help? The incidents occurred in the residential hall. My behavioral record in high school is spotless, and my professors have been willing to write glowing letters about my involvement in class. If I maintain my 4.0 GPA after exams I would much rather transfer for the upcoming fall semester rather than return here. They have given me a number of counseling requirements which I plan on doing regardless if I return to the college, so the colleges will see I am trying to “fix the problem” as the administrators put it. Is there any way to transfer to another school, that is decently competitive, while I am suspended?
If your anger gets so out of control that you’re putting other people in headlocks you’re not in counseling to “fix the problem”, you’re in counseling to fix the problem. I think you’re better off working and getting counseling for a semester then returning to your current college. If you can put an incident free year between you and the suspension it will probably be easier to transfer if you decide that’s what you want. In the meantime, take a hard look at yourself and the reasons you’re in your current situation. You want to give adcoms a reason to accept you. Drinking and assaulting your classmates aren’t qualities that are going to recommend you. But addressing the problems head on and showing you’ve put them behind you might.
This is serious - the fact you can’t recognize it indicates you need counseling.
Accept the suspension and work on yourself (+ job).
In addition, you should try and get to an AA meeting for teens, just to compare experiences.
If you can stay clean for the whole semester, return to your college and think of transferring then.
I completely understand where both of you are coming from but I would consider the violation more of “rough housing” rather than assaulting, it is not as if I randomly attacked my peer. It is not intense anger but a form of wrestling which my peer did not report me for. I was seen with a bloody nose by a RA. And to me to “fix the problem” lies within drinking, which I never really engaged in until I enrolled in college. What seems playful to me when I am under the influence, is serious in real life. I do not believe its anger getting out of control. I accept that my drinking is a serious problem that needs to be fixed. I did not intend to put quote around “fix the problem” to make light of it, but rather that it is not simple addressed by that and the college refuses to recognize the culture it harbors within its residential halls.
My main concern with coming back to the same college is that there is a chance that find myself in trouble with alcohol again. I have asked about the possibility of living off campus when I return but they were adamant about me returning to campus. Considering that when I return I remain on probation until graduation I believe it is best for me to stay away from the place where the incident happen. After counseling I hope this will not remain a potential problem. However, will other colleges look down upon the fact that I did not remain living on campus when I returned from the suspension?
You would have to ask for the wellness/substance-free dorm. Being around people who don’t drink will help.
Employers and grad schools wouldn’t know about your living off campus.
I’m assuming you may be required to live on campus at this particular college for at least 2 years? It’s not smart for someone with an alcohol problem to work in bars, and one could argue that being required to live on a campus where a drinking culture is rampant is similar to someone with an alcohol problem being forced to work in a bar, so I understand your temptation to (at least partially) blame the college, but really, this is on you. You are in the quasi-real world now where you’re still in college, but also an adult, living on your own, expected to take responsibility for your own behavior and realizing that your behavior has consequences.
Just as someone with an alcohol problem will never be able to avoid being in social situations where there is alcohol present and others are drinking, living off campus or even in substance free housing will not remove all temptations you might be exposed to for your remaining college years regardless of the college you attend. It might help, but you can’t lock yourself in your dorm room/apartment away from all temptation forever. That’s not the real world.
I had a roommate in college who clearly developed a drinking problem after we moved out of the dorm and into an apartment. It got so out of hand that I staged an intervention with our other roommates and some of our mutual friends, getting them to agree not to drink with him AT ALL or go anywhere with him where there was alcohol present. He didn’t stop drinking, and it wasn’t my responsibility to stop him. Only he could do that, but I saw it as my responsibility as a friend not to be an enabler. At that point, I don’t think he felt he could have “fun” without drinking and it caused a rift in our friendship because I was behind it, so it was my fault.
But after college the phone rang one day and it was him, thanking me. While he was initially angry and embarrassed at the time, he said he realized in retrospect that I was the only one who cared enough to confront him on it head on. But he came to this realization only after he ran into drinking problems in the post-college world.
At some point, you’ll learn that you can’t completely run from your problems or less-than-ideal social situations in life. You’ll need to learn to face them. Better now than later. Take the suspension, and when you go back, do your best to avoid tempting situations, but realize you won’t be able to avoid all of them. And think about who you associate with. Avoid enablers. They are not your true friends. True friends have each other’s best interests in mind. They won’t sit back quietly while you become the butt of jokes and whispers behind your back.
If you still really want to transfer, can you go to community college and take general ed classes so you don’t fall behind? With a semester or year of CC maintaining your 4.0 or something close to it under your belt while avoiding drinking or any other trouble, you might have better success after showing some evidence that you took positive steps to fix the problem and had been successful in a different environment, that the culture/environment of the particular college you attended may not be the best environment for you, and that you feel another college with a different culture/environment would be more conducive to your continued success.
Wishing you all the best.
Hope things worked out for you - did you end up transferring?