Last Semester at Community College: Feeling Really Unmotivated and Depressed. Need Advice

[tambat]

BEWARE: RANT AHEAD

So I'm 20 years old I have been in community college now for almost 3 years. It's currently my last semester, however for some reason I feel really depressed. I started community college a week after I graduated high school and have been taking classes every semester ever since (Including summers) However my GPA sucks. I have a 3.3 GPA overall. I am currently applying to nursing school and I just got an email today from one of the universities asking if I wanted to change my major because I don't qualify. The average GPA's for majority of the students accepted is like a 3.8 in their major prep and like a 3.9 overall. I just feel like such a failure right now, that it's making me really unmotivated this semester. I just really don't know what to do to make myself feel better? I just feel like I am constantly stressed, worrying about the next application, or if I'm even going to get in.

Another thing that has been probably the hardest for me this semester is the fact that I don't really have friends at my community college at the moment. I mean I talk to my classmates in the one class I have on campus, and we study outside of class sometimes, but that's all I do is just study with them, I don't know them well enough to really hang out with them.

Because I go to community college nearly half my classmates aren't around the same age as me so it's so hard to relate with them.. if that makes sense? Also, all of my friends that I had in Community College transferred last year and the one friend that I hung out with last semester isn't taking classes at my school right now, so I'm all alone.

I think the lack of human interaction is really getting to me. All throughout my break before the Spring Semester began, I was studying for my nursing entrance exams, so I only spent two days off with friends before I started Spring Semester. I would stay home ALL Day taking at least two, three hour exams per day, while my dad yelled at me constantly to continue to study. I spent Christmas and New Years Studying as well.

Between the rejection letter, the continuous applications, and the lack of human interaction, I just don't know what to do to make myself less lonely, or less stressed out. Any advice would really be appreciated.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Sounds like you may need to take a break from school for a bit. In many industrialized countries, it is normal for HS graduates to take a "gap year" before entering college. This not only gives them an opportunity to engage in some non-academic work for a while, but also allows for some additional maturation to occur.

Can you negotiate with your Dad so that he will understand why you need to do this? If you set some timelines - so that your 'break' won't go on interminably, he is more likely to agree.

[mirandaaa]

Fully agree with HouTx. I'm 22 and am just now in my second (and final) semester of pre-reqs.

After high school, I took 3 years off of school and it really was the best decision I could have made. In high school, my grades didn't matter to me. I didn't care if I was missing assignments and was a B- student. I was fine with that (really wishing I would have listened to my mom, though. Student loans will be a killer).

After I graduated high school, I went to a community college for a semester to get my Mortuary Science degree and I bombed that semester. Because once again, I didn't care. I wasn't into it.

It took me about two years of freedom and less responsibility (in the academic world anyway) for me to finally figure out what I wanted to do and have the determination and the drive to get me there. That third year was a struggle to get financial aid with the government's crappy system and I kept getting denied and was constantly in the financial aid office and that made me even more determined.

Like I said, I'm now in my second semester of pre-reqs. Last semester I made the Dean's List for my grades and was invited to Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society for my GPA.

Taking a break between high school and college is really important. People push college after graduation out of fear that the student won't return, but for me, that break made such a difference to my mindset and my maturity in school and it even changed my major from Mortuary Science to Nursing!

My mom was similar to your dad at first and she was upset with me when I told her I needed time off of school. Now she understands why I did it and that I needed it and she's so happy that I've made it this far especially because of the 180 I've made in my studies.

I'd say just talk to him. He may be upset at first, but in the end it'll make things so much easier for you. Also HouTex made a suggestion to give him a timeline, I think that's a great idea. I didn't have a timeline, I just knew that I'd know when it was time to go back (and I did).