I'm going to a two-year school designed to transfer it's students to a four-year school. I'm in my third semester, which means that next summer would be when I transfer. I have no idea where I want to go. My dad keeps aggressively suggesting programs in schools nearby that don' t appeal to me at all (he does this type of thing a lot, not just with school). I've said for a while now that I want to stay in the state, but these past couple days I've been thinking that maybe going away would be good for me. It's a scary situation to be in to suddenly have these thoughts and not know what to do about them when I'm supposed to act on them in about 6 months. So I thought maybe taking a semester off would be something to consider? When I started school that was something I told myself I'd never do because it would be hard to come back. I don't know... what do you guys think about this? Obviously I'm going to talk to some people at school, but I need input from people who aren't my parents. It's overwhelming.
I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, I go to a two-year school as well. Through some poor planning on my part it actually took me 2.5 years to finish here (I'm in my last semester now), and I didn't want to transfer in the spring and needed to save money to transfer, so I'm taking a semester off. I'll also be moving a bit away regardless of where I go and waiting this extra semester enables me to take my sister with me. Honestly I'm pretty glad for it, it gives me time to really prepare for what a big change it is, and having my sister with me makes moving out a lot less scary. What I think distinguishes me from you, though, is that I know what I want to do career-wise and am really motivated to work towards it. I was concerned that, in taking time off from school, I might not return, as so many people do -- but given how much I love school and what I'm studying I don't think that'd be the case for me. From what you've written it doesn't sound like you really know what you want to do yet -- which is fine, but assuming you'd be working in whatever time off you take, it can be really easy to get stuck in that rut and just keep delaying. On the other hand, at a four-year school, I believe you'll have to declare a major which I'm sure is intimidating if you have really no idea what you want to do. You may end up wasting your time in a major that you find really isn't for you, then switching your major or even switching to a completely different school, which will delay your graduation and it could end up that college takes you the same amount of time it'd have taken if you did take a semester off now (that sentence probably doesn't make any sense). At the end of the day it obviously comes down to you but I think it's really hard to transfer if you don't know what you want to study -- you have pretty much no frame of reference for choosing a school. When I started looking at schools to transfer to, #1 on the list was "how well do they fit my degree program." I'm sure that's contributing to your dilemma. If you have a rough idea of what you want to study but you don't know what you want to do with it, like if you want to study art but you don't know what you want to do with that degree, I don't think delaying is necessary, because that's something you can discover along the way. If you're totally lost though I think it's perfectly fine -- good even! -- to take some time off to figure it out. If you do end up taking time off, though, I really recommend seeing if you can still take a few classes at your community college. Nothing too heavy since again I'm assuming you'd be balancing a work schedule with them, but pick subjects you've really enjoyed so far and see if anything resonates with you to the point where you say "I think I'd like to major in this." Even if that doesn't pan out, it'll still keep you in the school mindset to prevent the possibility of your not going back. There's a very real stigma here to students taking time off school for whatever reason and I think that's really unfair. Sometimes life comes up, sometimes you just need time to cool down -- it's okay! College isn't about just blowing through and getting your degree as soon as possible, it's a process that you need to take at your own speed and you should enjoy the experience. It's a time to explore yourself and your interests, and if you need to take a semester or two off to do that, that's totally okay.
