I was a very poor student in HS for a variety of reasons. I graduated in 2011 with 2.8 gpa and 1860 on the SAT (took only once on 4 hours of sleep, didn’t study at all etc). I attended CC on and off for a few years after HS and did alright. I have a 3.65 GPA with 36 credits but took mostly art classes. At the time I was intending to transfer into a private art school, which I no longer consider to be a financially viable option. In CC I didn’t take my studies seriously at all - I also struggled with a lot of personal issues that caused me to drop out of one semester when I was 19. This all took place in Wisconsin.
I am 23 now and have been working full-time since I was 19. A year ago I moved across the country to New Orleans, changed a lot of things in my life and decided I want to go back to school for international studies/political science. I am thinking of enrolling at the University of New Orleans but I’d want to transfer to a more academically rigorous school after 2 good semesters at UNO. I don’t think I could get into the schools I’d want to right now (UW Madison, UMN Twin Cities) because my transcript is not that great, but I live hundreds of miles away from my CC and don’t want to move back to my hometown just to take classes there.
Is it okay to transfer schools twice, or really looked down upon? Should I wait a year or two and let my credits from CC expire? I feel somewhat at a loss because of the mistakes I made 4+ years ago…