I'm probably overdue for another serious blog, so here goes.
I'm a junior in college right now. Yet I'm 23 years years old, which is not normal for someone in my grade level. Some of you out there are probably wondering why that is. I will tell you why in this blog.
Most people say that they had a shit experience in high school, but that wasn't the case for me. I was king of the world in high school, especially by my senior year. I knew almost everyone in my grade level, and a had a group of good friends that understood me and liked me for who I was. I was playing varsity football, I was getting good grades in relatively difficult classes, and no one ever tried to bully me or anything like that. I graduated high school with almost a 4.0 GPA, was a member of the National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society, and got a special commendation as the best student in physics. High school fucking ruled for me.
So, with a high school experience like that, it should have been all roses and dandelions after that right? Wrong. I made several mistakes in my transition to college. The first was that I only applied to three colleges - UVA, Notre Dame, and George Mason. There were several other colleges I probably should have applied to, first and foremost Virginia Tech. The reason I didn't apply to Tech was that it was the school everybody and their mother were all applying to, and my weird hipster-ish tendencies made me not want to apply to the school everyone else was. I wasn't accepted to either UVA or Notre Dame, so I was forced by my own arrogance to go to George Mason. Not that I have anything against the school, it's just that it wasn't really my choice, I just picked it because it was very close and familiar. And none of the friends I really knew were going there.
So, I entered George Mason with the attitude that I would go there for a year and then transfer out to either UVA or Virginia Tech. That was my second mistake; that kind of attitude really backfired on me. I didn't make any friends because what was the point if I was just going to leave in a few months? On top of the that, I lived at home, so I would just go to class and then come straight home. No interaction with other students, or teachers, or anybody. I started skipping classes, and my grades plummeted because I stopped caring. I still applied to those schools at the end of that first year, but they again didn't accept me. That just sent me further down into a vicious cycle of depression and failure. So after two more years of that I was almost a year behind where I should of been in terms of academic progress. So I decided I needed a change, left George Mason, went to the local community college, and changed my major from physics to engineering.
It didn't always go smoothly, but having to change schools and admit that I screwed up really humbled me and helped me to focus. I started completely over as a freshman and worked my way back up again. After two years of community college, I earned my Associate's in Engineering and was looking to transfer out. My grades still weren't good enough to go to UVA or Virginia Tech, but I ended up transferring to Old Dominion University this fall semester, which is where I am now. I'm living on campus now, which I think has really helped me make friends and become involved, unlike my previous go-arounds. I'm pretty sure I'm in a much better place now.
So that's why I'm three years older than I should be. In a way, it's kind of neat. Everybody else around me is still underage, while I can simply waltz into a bar or a Buffalo Wild Wings and have a few beers. Some of my friends almost look at me like the wise old man XD. So it's not all bad. But I don't recommend going that route.
