hi, so i’m at a pretty decent school right now but i hate it here. i don’t feel lonely or anything and i have friends, but i just hate the culture and location here. there’s literally nothing to do here, so the only thing you can really do is party. i’m a huge introvert, and while i do like to party occasionally, it’s not something i see myself doing regularly. i also just don’t really feel comfortable here. i’m from a pretty asian populated place, so i’m incredibly homesick. i miss asian foods and people, and i get incredibly homesick.
for context, i’m from northern nj and i would go up to nyc a ton and really loved spending time in the city. i applied to transfer to a few schools last semester, but got rejected from all of them. i was really disappointed, and i had zero motivation to study or do anything. i’ve gotten the lowest grades i’ve ever had, and ended my freshman year with a 2.48 gpa.
this feeling has carried over to this semester, and my grades are still pretty abysmal. i don’t know why, but i’ve just had ZERO motivation to work hard. i’m realizing the trouble i’m in now, so i’m trying to study for these last couple of midterms i have and the finals to hopefully recover.
my question is: is it too late to recover and transfer? i’m so lost. i’m a computer engineering student that basically has no real projects and only in a few clubs as a minor member. i only applied to this school because my parents told me to during high school, and it was the best school i got into. i feel pressured to stay here because of my parents, i wish i said something about my feelings towards this school earlier. i wish i just worked a little big harder in high school so i could go to school in the city or even near home.
do i just have to thug it out for the rest of my college career and stay here? my school is pretty decent and i feel like i’m wasting my time and resources, but i’m just so miserable here.
any advice is appreciated, even if it’s brutally honest.
Have you told your parents how you are feeling? That might help. Nobody wants their kid to be miserable.
Have you sought out the counseling center? Can you quickly sign up for tutoring so you can finish the current semester as strong as possible?
We don’t know why you were rejected as a transfer- but some schools take very few transfers, so it may not be personal, just “too many applicants for too few beds”. There is likely a college out there that will take you- warts and all- but we’d need to know more about you, what you are looking for, before we recommend a few of them.
You could try and transfer to Fordham for CS or Manhattan University
SUNY Buffalo is an engineering powerhouse and they are still accepting applications (final deadline Dec1 but ASAP is better). They typically want a 2.5 GPA so you’d need to send your current grades (if they’re close to Bs) to bolster your application. https://engineering.buffalo.edu/
You’d have to do a really good job on those last exams so get all the help you can - tutors in every subject, study/review session, counseling center (for moral support and make sure you hold on).
Go to office hours every week between now and the final. Bring your notes and questions (whenever you have a question during reading, p-sets, la , or lecture, jot it down and bring the question to office hours).
Do so in every subject. If you have class during some office hours, make an appointment.
I suppose you’ll be home for Thanksgiving break - try and talk to your parents.
Most parents don’t want their kid to be miserable and any perceived benefit from a prestigious name doesn’t translate into anything if you don’t have a 3.0.
SUNY Buffalo may well be what you need for a fresh start, or it may be another university.
My two cents is if you are going to keep getting grades well below what you think you could get at another college, you should try to resolve that issue by any reasonable means.
This may take being open-minded about where you go next. You may in fact want to consider a pause in your schooling. I know these can seem like drastic measures, but sometimes kids just need a break from the school grind, and it is unfortunate when they feel like that isn’t an option.
Have you considered taking a leave of absence from your current college…if they allow this? It would give you a break from the college you are at, and you could get a job, volunteer, and really…relax. You might decide to go back to your current college…or you might decide to apply elsewhere.
We don’t know where you applied last year, but perhaps those schools were too reachy for a transfer student.
Regardless…it sounds like you need a break to readjust what you want to do.
College will be there when you want to attend (disclaimer, my DH took 7 years off after his first couple of years of college…and worked). This is a journey, not a race.
Some of the happiest AND most focused college students I have known were older students who took an extended break in their schooling. By the time they came back to college, they knew exactly what they wanted out of a college experience, and what a college degree could do for them.
I have to thoroughly agree. Our daughter from SoCal graduated with a dual degree in electrical engineering and computer software from SUNY Buffalo and loved it! She was one of 5 females, at the time, but “killed” it. She could have attended the UC’s, USC, Yale and Hopkins, but originally entered their “premed” program because of their affiliation with upstate NY med school preferential admission. She switched to engineering because it was more her “thing”. She’s back in Southern California and is a CS/engineering manager in a large international firm. Her education at Buffalo set her up for success.
She is a non-drinker, and “found her people”, volunteered, tutored and was kept really busy. It’s a large school so there is lots to do.
Tell your parents that your current school is a “party” school and that your grades dropped because of the social pressure to go to parties. (A little white lie to get them thinking). That will immediately send them in a tailspin.
You are asking for advice…I am an introvert, and I have made many of my best friends through paid work and volunteering. I don’t think your academic results will be any worse taking time to do something not school related. If you can tutor English in an Asian community, you are likely to get adopted and have grandmas bring you food (I am brainstorming here…). Having a higher purpose helps. Graduating, come heck or high water, is a worthy purpose. Helping others is a purpose. Maybe you can find a professor or grad student that needs a volunteer, and you can learn their purpose. And if it makes you feel better, college really should be a journey of self discovery, you are, right now, figuring out what is important to you and what matters. You are doing it right! It is going to have struggle and hard things, that is how you grow. It is OK. Just don’t quit the journey, wherever it takes you. There is a lot more out there than just the 4 years of undergrad! Good luck with finals, finish as strong as you can, go visit all of your professors, they are there to guide you (whether they know how our not, you have to try anyway). Leave every thing you can out there, and enjoy your family this holiday!
i’ve made two appointments with my school counselor and cancelled them both because i felt like it was going to go nowhere because i probably would’ve just broken down and went non verbal during the appointment
i don’t even want to go to bu anymore, i don’t know what to do with anything
There’s a chance you could get academic relief for this semester if you act soon enough. This is where you provide the school with a medical reason (depression and anxiety) for your poor grades and if the school agrees, they may let you leave school without any grades. At my daughter’s school, you had to take off at least one semester before returning.
Even if you have no history of mental illness, your two cancelled counseling appointments and failing grades are evidence of your state of mind. Please see your counselor and advisor asap to see if this is an option.
First off go talk to the counselor. They are sooooooo used to students breaking down when talking that that won’t phase them a bit. That’s just part of being a counselor.
My kid is on to her third college! It’s not too late to transfer! I know sooooooooo many people who took a semester off and then went back or went to a different school. You are not stuck, but you need to start with a counselor.
