<p>When I started college last year I really enjoyed it. I was a straight A student and genuinely enjoyed (most) of my classes. This year I have just become completely burned out by college. Im stressed, crying all the time, and have to motivate myself to do any studying/work. After weighing all of my options and talking it over with my mom (who is fully supportive whatever I decide) I decided that I needed some time off to refocus on what I want in life. </p>
<p>My problem is that I do not know if it would be better to drop my classes now or force myself to continue until the end of this semester. If I were to withdraw now I would have Ws on my transcript, but is the absence of ws worth being this emotionally miserable? </p>
<p>I absolutely plan to come back in a semester and I was wondering if will having the Ws will affect my chances of being re-admitted to college or (someday) grad school.</p>
<p>Why does it have to be all or nothing? Can’t you withdraw from a single class to lighten your load and stick out the semester so as not to forfeit your already paid tuition, fees, etc.? Then you can take the summer to figure things out.</p>
<p>I think it depends on how miserable you are. I consider myself pretty miserable now (mostly because of one class), but not enough to make me withdraw from it.</p>
<p>If you’re miserable to the point of contemplating suicide, then I say, yes take time off. Explaining why you have W’s on your transcript is better than harming yourself.</p>
<p>I really hate all of my classes. I thought seriously about dropping one or two, but I decided that just wasn’t a good option for me. What I need is a real break from college not just a reduced courseload.</p>
<p>Well I know at my school there’s a time in the middle of the semester where you can drop and get all your money back from the classes, is there something like that there?
Like after the 2nd half of the semester starts you can get a full refund then.</p>
<p>Wait I just looked it up and it says for students taking under 12 units for the 2nd half. >.></p>
<p>I don’t think my school has anything like that. Anyway, oney really isn’t what I’m worried about. What I’m worried about is if having the W’s on my transcript will affect my admission chances at school later.</p>
<p>Since you’re withdrawing because of your mental health I don’t think it should affect you, but you should make a note of that somewhere when you go to apply.</p>
<p>Is whatever happened this semester likely to happen in a future semester?</p>
<p>If you are absolutely sure that this is a one-time thing, then maybe withdrawing now would make sense.</p>
<p>But if it’s likely to happen again, then you might be better off finishing this semester and then only having four more (or whatever it works out to be for you) after you go back than withdrawing now and having five more after you go back. And if the trigger is related to one or more classes that you’re taking now that you’ll have to take at some point, you’ll probably be better off spending one semester each in that class or those classes than one and a half.</p>
<p>If the issue boils down to you hating the classes that you are in right now, then I guess my question comes down to whether you are going to have to take these classes, or very similar classes, at some point? If these are gen-ed classes, then it might be better to stick it out. If they are classes for your major and you expect to change majors when you return, then it might be better to withdraw now. </p>
<p>If you are primarily concerned about having Ws on your transcript, Schmoomcgoo’s suggestion might be worth thinking about. Even if you need time away from school, period, finishing this semester with two or three classes might be more tolerable than finishing with all of them, and ending up with two or three Ws on your transcript might be more tolerable than ending up with five. You can always delay going back for an extra semester if the summer and fall aren’t enough time for you to recover. Moreover, for the transcript to matter at all someone is going to have to be looking at it to see what your performance was like, and it might be valuable to be able to say, “Even though things were very difficult at this point, you can see that I stuck things out.”</p>
<p>You might also want to go talk to your advisor and see whether incompletes might be a possibility for some or all of your classes. The main thing to keep in mind, though, is that Is turn into Fs after a certain point, so if you are not going to be able to finish the work within a certain period of time – if, for instance, you need more time off than you realize right now – you would definitely be better off with Ws than Is.</p>