Notes from a College Sophomore Dropout Without a Plan

By Audrey Cress

Every morning of fall 2024, while I put on my red uniform for my job at the nearby Gate gas station, my roommates ate breakfast together, stressing over parking on campus and waking up for their 8:00a.m. classes.

It was the first August I didn’t spend thinking about school. It was the first August I didn’t have the butterflies in my stomach cheering me on as I gathered spiral bound notebooks, a rainbow of highlighters and 78-cent folders.

An email from Flagler College is still sitting in my inbox over a year after it landed there: “Hi Audrey – thank you for submitting your application for readmission to Flagler College.” I come across it every so often.

It always brings me back to my season as a college sophomore dropout.

It was the idea of supporting myself with a job I dreaded most when I began living as an independent adult. I thought if you want something enough, and work hard enough, you get it; but with the weight of limited finances, a college degree became increasingly more unrealistic.

My plan, surrounded by carefully strategized credit hours and a part-time job, started to blur. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a plan.

I have a strong belief that God has a plan for my life, rooted in years stacked on years in church, Bible studies and personal devotion, but I couldn’t fit God’s plan for the next year in my 20×20 grid notebook. 

My thoughtful strategy out the window, I finally had the chance to catch my breath, to look at the next year not as a student, but as just another adult. I struggled to find a balance between paying rent, finding a job that I enjoy, and creating a daily routine that cared for the physical, emotional and spiritual sides of myself.

For the first time I could remember, I didn’t have a GPA over my head. I could plan a trip during the second week of October. I moved to a new apartment, with a yard and a swing. I married the man I love. For the first time, I didn’t have a plan.

While my roommates were studying for finals, I was contacting every publication in the area, looking for someone who would hire a college sophomore dropout. I didn’t have an advisor to tell me I was making the right decision. I just knew if I didn’t do it, no one would.

I started working in a creative position at a local publication, and I was able to say goodbye to my black and red Gate uniform. With a new relationship status, I knew finances would look different. I let myself hope and believe that a degree was still in my future, but even if it wasn’t, I’d be ok.

It’s a universal experience – having your life goals and futures evolve and shift like sand beneath your feet. It was unsettling, realizing that all “grown-ups” are just hopping on quicksand. How comforting it was to realize we are all doing the same little dance.

At the age of six, we don’t expect “artist” or “astronaut” will stop being viable answers to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As 12-year-olds, we don’t expect to deal with college rejection letters. When graduating high school, we don’t expect to be forced to drop out of college after just one year – rinse and repeat.

I walked back on campus Spring of 2025. The only weight on me was from the notebooks, highlighters, and cheap folders in my backpack. I passed my peers on my way to class. My excitement was electric. I could’ve shocked them if they got too close. 

I am back. I am submitting assignments and ordering my textbooks with a new sense of gratitude. This almost didn’t happen.

I could have stayed at the gas station, gathering a paycheck for work done half-heartedly, but I am finishing the degree I have wanted since I was 12. I am going to be leaving Flagler College in May with more than a Bachelor’s degree.

I will leave with a new sense of self; confidence in my ability to stay content and true to what I am passionate about, on or off a college campus, with or without a degree. For the first time, I don’t have to rely on a plan.