Sorry in advance for the wall of text. I'm just copying from a post that I've made on some college help sites. I'm mostly trying to figure the things in this post out for myself, but I thought it would be fun to see what the LetsRun crowd has to say as well.
Hey y'all, I'm currently a sophomore attending the University of Oklahoma, and lately I've been considering transferring schools. Sorry in advance for the wall of text.
Current Stats:
Major - declared Health and Exercise Sciences but really undecided, I will have a minor in economics after next semester but I don't really want to study it anymore
GPA - 3.94, course load up until now has been pretty unremarkable, but this spring semester I'm taking some pretty intense classes
Extracurricular
-I work 14 hours a week as a tutor for OU's athletic department (really more like 20, but only 14 official hours).
-I'm event chair for the Habitat for Humanity Student group, which basically means I organize the fundraisers.
-I train competitively for track & field, but I'm not actually on any sort of team so I don't know if that counts for anything.
-I coach a youth track and field group at the YMCA, and during the summer I help coach my old high school team.
-During school breaks I also work as an assistant teacher for my city's English as a Second Language classes.
My extracurricular activities used to be much stronger, but with the exception of the tutoring job, most of those have fallen by the wayside a bit as far as serious participation goes.
Schools I'm thinking of transferring to: U. of Alabama, Auburn, Louisiana State University, College Charleston, U. of Tennessee, U. of Mississippi. Still looking though.
So here's the story of why I'm thinking of transferring. When I was in high school I didn't give much serious thought to colleges, but I did hope to run on a college team. Well my senior year I had a series of injuries and bad races, and basically got discouraged from my dream of running in college. I dealt with a few psychological issues during this time as well. I made a rush decision and accepted a full-ride from the University of Oklahoma, basically wanting to get as far away from my problems as possible. About halfway through my first semester I snapped out of my funk and started training again with the hope of transferring the next year, but I got injured again and put all of my applications on hold.
I returned to OU for my sophomore year disappointed but intent on making the best out of the situation. Unfortunately, I've made myself even more miserable than before. I've had serious problems making close friends even though it seems like I'm acquainted with half the school, and my social life is pretty bleak. I've also been dealing with some pretty gnarly depression and self-destructive behavior which is really hindering my attempts to improve my social life. It's about all I can do to keep my grades up and show up for work, and my training has fallen apart so that I'm barely running at all now.
So basically these are the reasons that I'm considering transferring:
-I feel like transferring schools might give me an opportunity to "reset" my college experience.
-I miss living in the deep south, where I grew up and where my family still lives. Norman, Oklahoma is pretty far removed from the culture and natural setting that I'm used to.
-The desire to compete in college track is still there, albeit weaker now after so much time injured and without motivation. I feel like if I was careful and determined, I could use this semester and the summer to get in good enough shape to walk on to a weaker program.
-I don't really like Oklahoma's focus on getting students employed by the oil industry. I'm tired of not knowing what I want to do with my life.
On the other hand, there are several reasons that I am considering staying at Oklahoma:
-So the obvious problem is that I have a full ride at OU, and transferring would require giving that up and possibly paying full tuition for a while (we all know transfer merit aid sucks). Between my scholarship and my job I've been financially self-sufficient at school and it would be weird to depend on my parents again, even for just a little bit.
-I realize that odds are against me breaking into college track, either because of injury (it never has seemed to heal all the way) or due to aforementioned self-destructive behaviors derailing my training again.
-I'm pretty prideful, and transferring feels like running away. If I transferred I would feel like I was admitting that I couldn't handle my situation at Oklahoma and that I'd given up. -If I'm still having problems at the new school, then I'll have made a pretty serious change for no good reason. On the other hand, if I can get through my issues without transferring I don't know if I would still want to leave as bad.