Struggling College student

Sorry for the long, rambling post, but here it goes.

I am a 23M college student, and I am currently in my 6th year of my undergrad.

I finished an associates degree on-time, then transferred to a pretty prestigious 4-yr school. Once I got there, I joined a Fraternity, made a lot of friends, parents were proud and supportive, and was having a great time, except I was struggling with my classes. After a year of being on academic probation, I decided it would best for my future to transfer schools so I could pursue a new major I thought I’d have more success in. The 4-yr school had a stupid policy that didn’t allow major changes between different colleges (eg. college of liberal arts to college of business) once you were junior status. I chose the higher possibility of graduating over all the new friends I had made.

At the new school I got into the new major and realized I hated it with a burning passion, so I switched back to a major similar to the one I was a before. I was Biology at the previous school, then I switched to a business major at the new school, then switched to biology education.

For the next year I was doing ok with my new major, but I was struggling so much socially. I missed all my friends from the previous school, and I was having no success in making any lasting friends at the new school. I’d make the occasional class friend, but after the class ended we either would fall out of touch, or on two separate occasions, had the new friend I’d made transfer out to another school. The only constant person throughout my time at the new school has been my roommate, but he’s not a very social person, so even when I’m hanging with him I feel so isolated because it’s usually just online videogaming from separate rooms. I’m a pretty social person by nature, so the lack of personal contact with people has really been eating away at me, especially knowing that i willing left an environment that I was so (socially) happy in.

It’s also worth noting that during the first year at the new school, I had a girlfriend that went there as well, and we’d hang out, have parties with her and her friends, or she’d invite me to things she was involved in, so when we broke up, all of that went away.

While all the social isolation is going on, I made it to a kind of mini student teaching with my major, where I realized I just wasn’t passionate about education. I realized that the only parts of the major I was enjoying were the biology classes, so I switched back to biology. Then it dawned on me that I switched schools, prolonged my graduation by a year, and lost all my friends only to end up in the same major I started out in.

So now I am starting my potential final year. I only have two 10-credit semesters left, but all the credits are intense senior-level courses, and at this point I am just absolutely burnt out on school in general. If I had taken these classes a year or two ago they would have been manageable, but now whenever I manage to drag myself to class, my mind just glazes over and I retain nothing.

I have some new additional roommates that I have been having more fun with this year, but I am so down about my academics that it almost doesn’t help. I have no idea what kind of job I want to pursue when (if) I graduate that I just have so much trouble focusing on the long-term picture. I have no idea where I see myself in 5 years, other than still in fucking college.

The final nail in the coffin is that my parents have been paying fully for everything so far, and are pretty much waiting for me to graduate before they retire. I really feel like I need to take some time off, but they just keep telling me to just buckle down and focus. I feel so terrible for taking so long. I don’t want to quit so all their money would just go to waste, but I also feel like if I stay I’ll just waste their money.

I feel so trapped, I don’t know what to.

If you made it this far, thank you for listening to my rant. This is the first time I’ve ever really written out how I feel.

Tl;dr - I’ve switched schools twice, switched majors 3 times, and lost all my friends. I’m completely burnt out on school, but I’ve put so much time in and wasted so much of parents time and money, I feel like I can’t take time off.

Submitted September 23, 2019 at 06:43AM by RegalDingo https://ift.tt/2IkbDyH