Taking a break from school is always a great choice. If it's right after high school, in the middle of your college career. Why? Because that break will allow you to step back and anaylyze how you want to spend your life for the next 50 plus years. Well maybe not for that long, but a good 10. School isnt for everybody, but I do recommend taking some classes and getting some sort of degree.

My freshman year of college was a walk in a park. I was on a scholarship, playing soccer, I didn't make my schedule, and I always had somewhere to be. Practice, breakfast, class, lunch, class, practice, dinner, study hall. I was okay with that routine, it worked very well. I left that summer with a 3.8 GPA, highest I had ever had. Then I decided to transfer to a University, not play soccer, and try it on my own. Reality caught up with me real fast, no scholarship meant I had to go back to work, no coach ment I had to decided my own schedule and find my own time for homework. I was lost, I was drowning in homework. My grades slipped, I moved out of the dorms into a place with friends and from there I lost it all.

I ended up drinking 5-6 nights a week, working 40-50 hours a week with 3 jobs. School wasn't a priority anymore, the party life style was though. Until one December night, I broke down. I was hungover as hell leaving work at 10 P.M., called my mom and told her I hadn't attended class for a month, I am over working myself, and I haven't been sober for a couple weeks. I moved home that Christmas Eve, and that was the best decision I ever made.

I tried to go to school while I lived with my parents, didn't work. So again I quit. I ended up taking a FULL YEAR off, which was amazing. I went full time at my job, I was offered a coaching job for soccer. And I found my motivation back, in that year I finally found something I enjoyed. Coaching, so I changed my major and applied back to the same university. I was accepted on my birthday and everything fell into place.

Now some might need more than a year, maybe just a semester off to re-gather and figure things out. That is ok! But make sure you go back, or you start. We are young, life is short, don't go to school and waste your money on something you have doubts about! I am so thankful for taking a break off, I am finally enjoying my classes, my grades are back up, and I choose school over work. Yes I am broke, but what college student isn't? I am making ends meet, it was going hard from making good money to counting my pennies. But that is life! This is a life lesson, these are all life lessons! Take them and run. Do not let the stress of school ruin you, take a break, breathe for a little, travel a little, find something that makes you happy and make something out of it.

Life is too short to be anything but happy.