<p>Some background: I didn’t do well in high school- I had a lot of health issues that kept me back for a year and prevented me from being well enough to do decently in classes, so my GPA was shot even as I tremendously improved as I climbed up the ladder and managed to raise it to a 2.9-3 by senior year with largely all B’s and A’s. My test scores and AP scores are good, though, I got an 1860 on the SAT from only taking it once and I got 4’s and 5’s on most of the AP tests that I took. I didn’t take college that seriously in high school and only applied to three schools (UD (which I didn’t want to go to to begin with), West Chester, and Rosemont College). UD rejected me, West Chester put me on a waiting list, and Rosemont accepted me- so I went to Rosemont. I had originally really liked West Chester when I visited, but enjoyed the campus at Rosemont as well. I went to a very small high school so I didn’t expect it to be too much different or anything that I couldn’t handle. </p>
<p>Rosemont gives me a lot of money. Of the 44k it costs for the year, 42k was already taken care of by federal grants/loans and by the school’s grant. Rosemont will allow me to study abroad as an education major. It’s about an hour away from my home in DE and it’s right on the main line with shops you can walk to and is right next to a train station to take you to Philly. But it is extremely small. I don’t know if we even have a thousand students. I know that my class right now is a little over a hundred, and that’s not counting all the students that are already planning to transfer (the school has a low retention rate). Everyone has been nice and it’s a very integrated campus with not much distinction between the classes because of how small it is, but I haven’t formed any meaningful relationships yet.</p>
<p>The thing is that there are maybe ten or so clubs on campus, and I can’t help but long for something a little bigger where I can find more people that share more of my interests. It seems like everyone has already formed “cliques” that always sit together or hang out together, and I end up drifting between them a lot without a solid place to belong. My classes are generally pretty good and I’m doing very well in all of them at the moment because now that I have my life on track, I want my grades to reflect what I’m capable of. I don’t dislike being here, but I do wish for something bigger. I’d like there to be a greater diversity of interests and classes and clubs that I can get involved in and for there to be more things happening around campus or in a town nearby. I’ve made some friends that I like and that I do some things with and I’ve been throwing myself into a number of campus activities like a community service trip and clubs, but there’s not much variety.</p>
<p>I’m still figuring out what I want as an education major and I’ve started to think about teaching middle school English. While I would be able to teach it, I don’t know if it would be better for me to be somewhere where I can take more specialized classes and be able to develop a niche that will help me once I get to the job market. I’m going to start working on figuring out my study abroad with the counselor soon to figure out how long I’d like to go for and for when to do it and the finances (I wouldn’t have a huge problem with having extra time in college so long as I don’t regret not going abroad) since I figure that it would be much better to get that done here where they’ll allow me to go, unlike some other colleges that prevent you if you’re an education major, or would it be better to go during junior year?</p>
<p>The question is whether I stay with Rosemont or whether I should try and find another school around the area with a solid education program, and whether it’s too (or more) socially disruptive to transfer for sophomore or junior year.</p>
<p>Thank you for any advice!</p>
I’ll start talking to the study abroad office and work on figuring out what I want to do in education. I just needed extra reaffirmation- so thank you!</p>