I feel miserable at my college - should I transfer?

Maybe take a gap semester 🤔

Tell us the school and town.

It's located in the Midwest.

What was appealing about the school initially that made you choose it? Are you on scholarship? Have you started to investigate possibly transferring somewhere else? Do your parents know how you're feeling about this school?

To be honest, it was probably my 6th or 7th choice school, but it was the best one I was accepted into. Yes, I've let my parents know, and they told me they'd support me transferring if I felt that it were best for me.

Notre Dame?

Sounds like you have analyzed your unhappiness with your school. It might be time to visit other colleges to find a better fit.

Personally I’ve found satisfaction at a school that has party/frat life IF you want that, dorm life IF you want that, or off campus housing IF you want that. I can go party until 3 AM during the summer/breaks in training, and then I live in an off campus apartment with teammates so we can dial it in and be in bed by 10:00 when we are in the swing of training.

Most schools/majors will have your first 1-2 years pretty easy, enjoy that while you can, I promise it’ll get very hard soon.

If you aren’t enjoying college, there’s nothing wrong with switching it up. It should be a fun, developmental part of life, not a miserable seemingly pointless one.

Catholic college?

yes transfer. research too. go to a school with a warmer climate, one less football crazy, and in a place with more things to do, probably a metropolitan area. One with better academics.

It sounds like Notre Dame, except for the academic part of it.

Look at schools in Arizona or California.

Sounds like Urbana Champaign...

Yes, that's it.

Correct.

It is. I guess it makes sense that most is easy, since I'm a freshman and taking mostly intro / general courses, but I was expecting to have to work a lot and that didnt' end up being necessary.

I knew it. The question about transferring is a tough one. Many departments are excellent and the school as a whole is ranked highly, but I could see many types of students having trouble with the culture there. I guess if you are truly miserable then you might want to consider your options. Sorry that you are in this position. I hope there are decent mentors you can confide in.

If a student isn't Catholic, in general I don't recommend Catholic colleges or Catholic universities. A second cousin once removed went there for grad school. This cousin of mine didn't fit in but just did the work, obtained m.s. or m.b.a. and moved on.

With academics, you can find classes as easy or challenging as you want. It all comes down to how you push yourself, especially if you're at a large school with lots of options.

But the rest are all good reasons to transfer. If you're not happy and don't like the culture and can't easily change it by switching roommates/apartments or something else, then it's time to go explore. Hopefully your grades are good and you can transfer to some place on the same level or better.

Just because everyone else is excited for the football game doesn’t mean you have to be. It’s ok to go against the grain. You’ll never find a school that is an absolute perfect fit. Enjoy the aspects you like, and don’t force yourself to enjoy those which you do not.

Usually transferring is easier than getting into school form high school so you can likely get into one or your other choices if you apply as a transfer with good grades from a good school.

I would say stick it out through the spring semester, maybe you have a better experience now that Fb is over… but if you still have time to apply to some of your higher choice schools for spring go for it and see what happens.

I would not take a gap semester as it will likely make transferring harder as you will have to come up with a compelling reason you took the semester off.