This article comes from a conversation I had with a coworker today. We were carpooling back from work and he brought up a question. He asked me, “if you could redo college all over again, would you?” At first I thought I knew the answer; my mind was quick to think no, but recently I have tried to take the time to think over my thoughts and so I thought it best to do the same.

When thinking it over for a couple of seconds, I wondered why I was so quick to say no. Did I really hate school that much? Did I truly regret going through the college system that much? Is there even a reason for me to go back to school? Would really be a bad thing?

The thought of restarting, and this goes for anything whether it be for schooling, meeting someone new, or even an activity, is simply terrifying to me. There is a thought that if you do a restart, similar to going backwards in time, you will change something fundamental that could either never be set back or make things so vastly different the future looks unrecognizable. Sure things can end up being for the best but what if it turns out far worse? But I suppose that is the appeal of it all.

So to go back to the question at hand, would I redo school all over again if there were no consequences? I think back to my time in college and often wonder how much better I would have fared if I knew what I knew now and had the assistance I had now. In college my biggest downside was not having the inspiration to do anything.

My first semester I went into a deep depression from the loneliness and the stresses of classes. I lost weight, I barely ate and while I went to class, I was simply going through the motions. When I transferred to Ball State, I did improve slightly but all I wanted to do was sleep.

I tried to keep relations with friends but that was mainly because I hated to be alone in my thoughts. I couldn’t find the drive to put effort into my work and I was ashamed to ask for help when I was struggling. In the end I did enough to graduate but my GPA overall was poor, which eventually will make graduate school applications a struggle.

Fast forward to the end of 2017 and I am thinking over my life now. While I still have a disinterest in schooling, I do have a stronger appreciation of learning. I still feel disinterested in topics at times but I now know how to manage that after spending time in therapy and also taking medication for my depression. So with that in mind you would think I would want to go back to school.

But on the tailend of it, I am at a point of my life I am struggling to figure out what I am doing. Out of high school I had three ideas as to what I wanted and I was also was ready to be married and knew I wanted children. But now, while I am employed and have a roof over my head, II sometimes wonder if my degree of choice was the right move. I like my job but it's not something I majored in and considering further education, I don’t know what would be the right fit.

Overall, I think I would try a redo my time in school. Try some more activities and take it more seriously. I don’t know if I would still keep with the same major that I graduated with or I would change but if it comes with a shot for something greater, I would like to take that risk.