Stay in school or take some time off?

Stick it out. Taking time off doesn’t look good on your resume. Potential employers don’t like time outers.

I think that you should stay in school. It is harder to go back than you think. Take a vacation instead.

Go for it, academia will always be there when you come back ( if you ever do).
You will never know if you never go.

I stopped and started and stopped and started college and finished over an extended period of time, and if I had to do it again, I would stick it out and do it all at once. I could have jumped into the rest of my life soo much sooner if I had. Stick it out. Plan something profound for this summer and use that as your short term carrot.

When I was in school, we called that “fifth semester slump.” Second semester of junior (third) year, assuming two semesters per school year, seems to be a classic time for burnout to strike. I dropped out then, and it took me four years to get back and finish. People gave me all kinds of alarmed looks and made ominous noises, saying, “If you stop now, you’ll never go back,” but I knew I would. I also know plenty of people who never did.

I think taking the semester off might be the right choice for one student and the wrong one for another. I’d give different answers to my two sons. Without knowing you pretty well—and having two or three hours to talk with you about it—I couldn’t possibly advise you.

Stick it out, but use this semester to focus on getting an internship position somewhere for the summer or next fall. It takes months to line those things up. If you have a liberal arts degree, the likelihood is that you will end up either teaching or in business.

Or, if it’s not too late, can you switch your classes this semester and take something entirely different, like classes that hone work skills—computer skills, accounting, statistics, etc. that will help with marketability and employability for an internship?

Go for the backpacking. You will learn a lot and school will always be there. If your heart isn’t in school, you shouldn’t be in school but don’t make this decision lightly.

Stay in school. All students have this thought at one time or another. There’s no need to put it off. Get that degree and then take a break before going into the workplace.

I would research if your school offers any study-abroad semesters. That way you get an adventure in (and hopefully some soul-searching) but are still earning credits towards graduation..

I quit from even the most important work if it makes me double minded. So I will suggest you to quit for some time if you can’t concentrate on your studies. Do the work when you start loving it.

I came close to suggesting what geeky mama did, if you mix it up some how it might help. Also know this. Finishing college is a funny thing, if you don’t its always an issue, and when you do it just doesn’t seem like a big deal. Most colleges offer some interesting options when it comes to your transcript. There are options to drop a grade or two, to take some classes just as pass/fail and other similar options. So if you stick it out check into these if you anticipate a down semester.

When I graduated high school, I had a scholarship for a year’s tuition at the university in my hometown. I didn’t really want to go to university right away, but I had already deferred my scholarship for a year (at that time Ontario high schools had a 5-year program) and couldn’t defer it any longer. I went to university even though I didn’t want to, and ended up dropping out in November.

I thought I’d just take the year off, but it ended up being 5 years instead of just one. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself and considered a few different career paths (hairstylist, journalist) while I worked full-time at a restaurant and then at a bookstore. Eventually I came to the point where I realized that I couldn’t get a job that I would find rewarding without a degree, and that the “real world” wasn’t challenging me. So I decided to go back to school.

I hadn’t earned any credits from my first enrolment, so I started fresh. I did 2 years of study toward an English degree, and then I thought: I’m not learning anything. I’m reading books and talking/writing about them, but I’m not learning much.

So I switched programs and, the next year, started on my Italian/Spanish degree. Once I realized I was in the right program for me, I absolutely fell in love with school. It took 5 years, but I got my degree and now I’m halfway through my MA and am applying to start my PhD studies in September. I’m 30.

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Sometimes it takes a while to find your place. If you don’t enjoy your schooling, you won’t do well, and taking a break is much better than ending up with terrible grades just because your heart isn’t in it. Think about your options and decide what’s best for you, but I wanted to offer my story to show that not everyone who drops out of school or gets their degree late is a fuckup.

I would say finish your degree. Reason being you want to have that under your belt before you enter the workforce, since most respectable jobs demand it these days (unless you are a self-starter and get into owning your own business or some other entrepreneurial endeavor). I regret taking 3 years off from college when I could have finished it up by then. I’m now on my masters and though I would love to take time off, I know I will feel much better once the degree is under my belt. You can always figure out what you want to do afterwards, sometimes blind faith is necessary in these persuits. Get your undergrad, then figure out what you really want to do and go for your masters in that, if you want to go back that is.

Pretty much anyone I’ve ever know who took time off never went back or else they returned with less focus than before. In your shoes, I wouldn’t.

On the other hand, when I went back I was more focused, serious, and committed than ever before. I was through screwing around. While living alone in a tiny apartment, doing all my own housekeeping, meal preps, etc., and also working three full 8-hour days per week to support myself at a subsistence level without any help from parents, I carried a heavy load of all upper-division courses in literature and philosophy, with tons of reading. I kept up with everything, and my grades were better than they’d ever been.

Those four years of growing up and of seeing what the workplace was like for someone without a degree opened my eyes and turned me from a smart but lazy student into a committed, hard-working one.

I’m sure your observation is accurate, @Neizvestnaya. It just doesn’t lead to a universal truth. That’s why it matters which student we’re talking about.

I’m with @Jeruba as well – I wouldn’t have done nearly as well in school if I had gone right out of high school.