"Real Life" year off
 

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Hi there,
Wow, it sounds like you've been going through a rough time. You poor thing. Hope everything gets sorted out. I just wanted to tell you that I had to take off most of my junior year as well. It is hard to come back after a year away. All of your friends are doing senior wills at the house, throwing graduation parties and talking about the future. Meanwhile, you're facing another year of school. However, several years out of college I can honestly say that I'm still in touch with all the friends that I would have been anyway and it really doesn't matter that they've been working for a couple of extra years.

On other thing... Have you considered working abroad? Right after college two of my friends got work visas to go to Ireland and both had an amazing time. The following year, I turned copycat and went to. Right now the daughter of an old family friend is over there because she just graduated from Iowa and wasn't sure what she wanted to do. Council Travel has this program where any college student or recent graduate (within 6 months) can get a work permit for Ireland, England or some other countries providing you pass a fluency test. That way you get to really live abroad but it's cheaper. All the money you need is about $300 for the work visa, a plane ticket, and enough money for the first couple of weeks to get yourself settled. Granted, you'll be living the poor, youth hostel kid life but that's kind of a fun thing to experience (at least I thought so.) Just another option to consider.

Anyway, good luck to you. Sounds like this has taken a lot of courage and strength so far and I really admire you for that.

Last note: You have the rest of your life to report to the office at 8a.m. but you're only 20 once. Enjoy it.

I think that APhi is on the right track -- why not just finish school and go abroad after you graduate, either to work or to "backpack around Europe" as people dream of doing after college? The only problem might be that as someone accustomed to living rent free in a 5 bed/5 bath beach house you might not enjoy hostel life. However, my thoughts would be to finish school before doing anything else; going abroad is nice, but isn't necessary.

Anyway, nobody expects you to have "real life" experience out of college. That's what the first few years after graduation are for, anyway.

The thing is it's the same cost to go abroad as to go to school for the year.