Would taking a semester off hurt me?

College Life
21

<p>Shut up yakyu, the girl is having a hard time.</p>

<p>littlesurfer, I went for one year to a small Cath girls college near NYC because my parents thought it wd be great and none of us knew any better. My mother’s cousins had gone there.</p>

<p>I knew it was a mistake within 6 weeks, maybe less. Everyone was wealthy and looked down on girls who had gone to public schools, a mere handful of the student body. </p>

<p>I had a terrible time. I did stick out the freshman year, because my Dad & I had both borrowed money for me to go there, and I could not throw that away. But I withdrew when the first year ended.</p>

<p>I spent the next 3 yr working at various clerical jobs, and saving as much as I could. I lived at home. It was not easy.</p>

<p>I also visited friends at the colleges they had gone to, and got a better look at various schools, private, public, etc.</p>

<p>I decided I wanted to go to Brown, and I moved to RI in spring of 1974. I got a job there – that was not really my plan; they just are a large employer in the city of Providence—and the next winter I applied as a transfer student. It had been so long since I was in college they did not ask for my old SAT scores. </p>

<p>I actually got in! By the back door. But it worked. </p>

<p>I also was a much better student the second time around than in 1970, and I was much happier and confident. </p>

<p>If you are really in the wrong place, andi t is not just transient homesickness, get out of there & take sometime off to work & figure out what kind of college you should be in. Grad schools will not care if you took some time to earn more $$ and that is what you will be doing, anyway. </p>

<p>If you are having troubles with depression, please see the counseling staff & get the help you need. Maye you should take time off & maybe not, but you certainly have to deal with this issue. Good luck & God bless!</p>

22

<p>It looks pretty flaky because it is pretty flaky. You have a future plan to attend a prestigious graduate school, have a track record of being unhappy today, and confused about what to do tomorrow. To answer your question, the short answer is NO. Obstacles are normal. Ones who recognize the obstacles, understand why they occur, do something about them, and have successful results are the MOST sought-after grad students and employees. To use a golf analogy, you see the hole but can’t find your ball. So, first, find your ball. Then, look at the path from your ball to the hole AND THEN look at the path from your hole to the ball. Where the two intersect, that’s your path. And, for goodness sakes, don’t pay a greens fee until you are ready to play that way.</p>

23

<p>Have you discussed this with your parents? if they are ok with it, then by all means, it is a valid choice.</p>

<p>Here is a scenario that ends with absolutely no long term consequences with your life:</p>

<p>In the spring - enroll in your local CC. Get excellent grades, and 60 transfer units. Then Transfer to a UC or a Cal State. Graduate … maybe a semester or year later than you thought. Onto grad school? The grad schools will look at your degree, and GPA, and not give a hoot about that blip in your second year.</p>

<p>You end up with a degree. You save a lot of money. You are in an environment where you feel safe and happy. </p>

<p>Good luck to you! Note how the parents who are answering are tending to look at the big picture, and not answering by insulting you, or making this seem like it is an insurmountable failure, or making it seem like something you can tough out. That is because we have perspective! </p>

<p>I dropped out from college for 2 years, not because of stress, I just wanted a few adventures. I went back, then went to grad school, and had a successful career. </p>

<p>Good luck. This, too, shall pass.</p>

24

<p>There is no way a decent graduate school could care less if you took a semester off. Seriously, I doubt they would even notice and even if they did, not care. There are just so many good reasons students do not follow a straight and narrow path. One semester break is not meaningful. </p>

<p>You have no idea how much material there is to process when reading files of graduate students. It’s huge. Making sense of transcripts grades and courses taken is important, but noticing particular dates of a given semester is not, and even if they do, I can not fathom how it will really matter. There are a million reasons you might do this, and it probably would not even come up but if asked you could by then have a truthful yet great sounding explanation. </p>

<p>There may be good reasons to stay or not stay but you have far more information than we can possibly have to make that decision. All I can say is worrying about the off chance that one day it will matter if one day you go to grad school (if you even end up going there, who knows) is not particularly important relative to much much bigger issues.</p>

25

<p>Going into a depression induced spiral will hurt your grad school chances much worse than taking a semester off. Do what you gotta do.</p>

26

<p>Sometimes we don’t see “the forest for the trees” – we are so focused on the misery of here and now and can’t get a wider perspective. </p>

<p>So, think this through. For a moment, in your mind’s eye, make yourself Professor Fabulous who has three candidates for her graduate program but she only has funding for one. Here’s her choices:</p>

<p>Candidate One: Total A’s everywhere. High scores. Interview and letters of reference indicate that this is an angry, demanding individual with few social skills. </p>

<p>Candidate Two: A positive, mature individual with a wide range of experiences. Grades and scores are respectable. Letters of reference are glowing. </p>

<p>Candidate Three: Another individual with strong grades and scores – but comes across as whiney, clinging and desperate for approval. </p>

<p>Does Professor Fabulous even CARE how many schools these three attended? Almost assuredly not. In fact, if Candidate One and Three are from Harvard and Yale, and Candidate Two is from Rustica College, the professor will still be thinking “OK, I have to work with this kid for two or three years and future funding will depend on this candidate doing a great job.”</p>

<p>Do what it takes to make yourself Candidate Number Two. If staying where you are is going to make you whiney and miserable, then bail while the bailing is possible. </p>

<p>Meanwhile, do some real soul searching and get as much professional help as you can (including life coach and reading “What color is your parachute” and similar self discovery material). Making one choice that didn’t work out is normal life. Making multiple choices that don’t fit you (and don’t work out) is destroying. </p>

<p>Many teens try on different looks in high school. One week they are Goth, the next week Party Animal, then Geek and so on – that “trying on” is part of discovering who we are not – and leads us to Who We Are. So don’t be overly dramatic about having tried on something that didn’t pan out. </p>

<p>Do talk to a campus counselor ASAP. If she/he is any good, they are experienced and may have run into other students who stumbled during the first week and they may know EXACTLY the questions to ask you to get your brain focused on what is major and what is minor in making you happy. </p>

<p>Do, please, be specific about what you would do if you do walk away from this semester. “Get a job” is too vague. The job market is horrible. Do you have any job skills? Food Handler card? Nanny experience? Would you do elder care? House cleaning? Check out Craigslist in the burg where you would be heading and see if there any jobs being listed that you could a) do and b) be sane doing. If the only jobs listed are “grave digger for minimum wage” or “adult diaper service launderess” then maybe surviving the semester will look better.</p>

<p>Good luck. Look at this from the viewpoint of being you ten years from now and you’ll have your answer of how big this is or isn’t. I think you could make this work either by leaving or staying.</p>

27

<p>Studying abroad is difficult and in the beginning, most students do feel very homesick and want to come home. You have to tough it out in the beginning, because when you break over that incredibly hard part that’s when the real learning begins.</p>

<p>In many ways, living away from home is like that too - regardless of whether you do it for college, studying abroad, or just moving away from home for the first time. There’s a part where you miss everything about home and you hate where you are, even if you intially loved it! Being away from things you know is difficult, but that doesn’t mean you should go home.</p>

<p>I disagree with Wizeguy4U, though, in the importance of transferring around. His statement is actually dependent upon the kind of program you enter. In a PhD program, for example, your entrance exam scores and GPA would matter very little compared to your interview, your research fit with the school, and your statement of purpose. But at professional programs, then you do need to keep your GPA up. And make no mistake, a lot of transferring around can raise some eyebrows. It looks as if you don’t know what you want and you can’t settle down or that you keep having problems at places so you transfer to avoid them or fix things. But if you have a solid explanation for the transferring, it should mitigate that.</p>

<p>Taking a semester off, though, is not going to be bad to graduate schools. You just need to be able to explain what you did with that semester off.</p>