I don’t regret dropping out of college because it brought me to Ohio State

When you hear the phrase “college dropout” what image comes to mind? I used to think that a dropout was someone who went to college because it sounded fun and then quit when they realized you have to put in effort to get a degree. At least that’s what I thought until I became one.

I dropped out of college in the middle of my second semester at a small liberal arts school in Ohio. I wasn’t flunking out of my classes or shrugging off the work. I just woke up one day and started questioning everything.

Like most students, I hadn’t started researching colleges seriously until the summer before my senior year of high school. The deadline for applications started creeping up and I felt pressured to make a decision that I wasn’t ready to make at 18. You spend 12 years in school asking permission to use the restroom, taking standardized tests, and dealing with teachers who don’t trust you—then all of a sudden you’re on your own.

Out of my immediate family I was the first person to go to college. Going on college visits, filling out applications, and researching schools was a new experience for my entire family. Every time I got to the line on an application that asked about my intended major I didn’t know what to mark. I was terrible with math and science, but I always loved English. I either had my nose stuck in a book or a pen in my hand, so I decided to study creative writing.

The first semester went how I thought it would. Being 45 minutes from home I could easily see my family, I got to know other girls in my dorm, I went to parties, and my English classes were exciting. It was a dream come true to sit in class for hours a day discussing books and doing writing exercises.

Despite all of the wonderful things I had going for me, something felt off when I went back after winter break. I wasn’t motivated anymore, not because I didn’t care, but because I wasn’t happy. The campus started feeling small, I became unsure of what I wanted to study, and failed relationships started to take an emotional toll.

After a month of second guessing and grappling with the fact that I wanted to drop out, I finally did it. I didn’t have a plan as to what I would do when I got back home and that was terrifying. My biggest fear at 18 years old was what people would think. I suppose that’s what most people fear when they drop out. My second biggest fear was where I was going to go from there.

I took a few months off to work and get adjusted to being back home before I made any moves toward going back to school. My journey to getting back on the wagon started with taking a few classes a semester at a community college when I wasn’t working my part-time job or putting in hours at my internship. It didn’t take long for me to miss classes that actually made me think and ask questions. When I felt ready I filled out and sent in my application to Ohio State, and for the past two years it has been my home. I joined a sorority, studied abroad, and became a better writer.

There’s this misconception that if you drop out of college you must be a failure or you just weren’t cut out for it. We’re expected to make a lot of decisions about our futures when we’re young, which means we’re bound to make a lot of mistakes as well. My mistake was choosing a school for the wrong reasons, but it turned out to be one of the best mistakes of my life.