When university goes wrong

I’ve talked before about a couple of the girls who used to be friends with buddy-child but moved away to school and cut off their friendship before leaving in the post ‘The first goodbye’.  There really hasn’t been any contact from buddy’s end of things since she deleted or blocked or whatever it is you do on facebook and twitter.  Every once in a while she hears from the other kids little tidbits of what is happening involving these two and it’s amazing how much she is learning as a result of their behavior.  For a while she was hearing how they weren’t going to class because they were partying too much.  (OMG, can you imagine that they’re missing so many classes?!)

Then she heard how they were coming home all the time and bad-mouthing her and her boyfriend.  (OMG, they’ve left for school, why do they even care what I’m doing.  Do you think I’m going to be talking about or paying attention to anybody here when I’m gone away for school???  And why do they keep coming back?  What’s the point in leaving?)

Then she heard about how the two of them were fighting (they’re roommates at the same school).  (OMG, I knew that was going to happen..  They were not at all compatible for living together!)

Sure enough, one of them ended up back in town having dropped out of school.  (OMG, you’re going to say “I told you so but guess what!!!”).  I did say to buddy-child before the girls left that this one in particular wasn’t going to make it because she wasn’t ready.

I also explained to buddy-child what happens when you flunk out like that (not allowed to apply for student loans for one full year afterwards, the school won’t let you back in for one full year either and then you have to convince them to take a chance on you again and go through a very detailed and lengthy process of letter writing and other such things).

I feel badly for this particular child.  She has a very abusive mother, a father that has nothing to do with her and never has and has had some crappy things happen to her in her young life that she should have received counseling for and didn’t.  She was so desperate to get away she ran the first chance she could get but she really, really wasn’t ready to go.  Yes, sometimes kids need to make their own mistakes to learn from them but the key is having the environment that allows them to learn.  Unfortunately, this young lady doesn’t have that.  Sometimes (like buddy-child) there is value in finishing off personal development issues before tackling other big jumps or transitions in your life.  Too much at once and things can collapse without really being able to put your finger on why it happened.