Failing out of college and going back at 28

This is a composite story, drawn from common experiences shared in the schizophrenia community. It does not depict a real individual.

I dropped out of my sophomore year of college in October 2017. I was 19, on a scholarship, studying mechanical engineering at a state university about four hours from where I grew up in rural Georgia. I walked across the stage to get my degree in May 2026, nine years later, at age 28. The path between those two moments is longer than I would have ever guessed.

The semester everything broke

I had been doing fine, more or less. Then I wasn't. By midterms of my sophomore fall, I had stopped going to my Thermodynamics lectures because I was certain my professor was inserting messages about me into the lecture slides. I stopped eating in the dining hall because I thought the food smelled wrong. I started writing long letters to a senator I had never met about a conspiracy I cannot now reconstruct.

My roommate called my mom. My mom drove four hours and took me home. Three weeks later I was admitted to a psychiatric unit for the first time. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia six months after that. I was not the same person who had moved into the dorm in August.

The years in the wilderness

From age 20 to 24, I lived with my parents. I worked when I could — a few months at a hardware store, a year at a Walmart, six months stocking shelves overnight at a grocery store. I lost most of those jobs. I was rehospitalized twice. My medications changed three times. I gained 70 pounds. I stopped reading. I told myself I was lazy because that hurt less than admitting I was sick.

The hardest part wasn't the symptoms. It was the gap between who I had been at 19 — top of my high school class, scholarship kid, the one everyone in town was proud of — and who I had become. I read about internalised stigma later and recognised every word. I had absorbed a story about myself: that I was finished, that the version of me that could do calculus was gone forever.

What started to change

Three things shifted, slowly, between 24 and 26.

First, my medication finally got right. After cycling through four antipsychotics, I started a long-acting injection of paliperidone (Invega Sustenna). I stopped having to remember a daily pill. The relapses stopped. I had eight months in a row where my baseline was just steady.

Second, I got a peer support specialist. He was 45, had been hospitalized seven times in his twenties, and was now working full-time at the local clubhouse model program. He told me, the first time we met, "You can go back to school. You probably won't do it the way you planned. But you can do it." He was the first person who talked to me about my future as if it still existed.

Third, I took one class. One. Introduction to Psychology, at the local community college, in the spring of 2024. I drove there twice a week. I sat in the back. I got an A-. That A- meant more than any grade I had ever gotten before, including the ones at the engineering school.

Going back, slowly

The next semester I took two classes. The semester after that, three. I switched my major from mechanical engineering to computer information systems, partly because the math was less brutal on my still-foggy concentration, partly because I wanted a degree that would lead to remote work. Cognitive symptoms are real, and I had to accept that the brain that could solve diff-eq at 19 was not the brain I was working with at 25.

I requested accommodations through my college's disability services office. I had documentation from my psychiatrist. I got extended time on tests, a quiet room for finals, and permission to record lectures. Some professors looked at me funny. Most just nodded and signed the form. The accommodations were not optional for me; they were the difference between finishing a class and dropping it. NAMI's college resources walked me through the steps.

The hard parts I don't want to skip

I want to be honest. There was a semester in 2025 where I almost quit again. I had a roommate situation that fell apart. I missed two doses of my injection because I changed clinics and the appointment slipped. The voices came back faintly for about a month. I called my psychiatrist. We adjusted. I stayed in school.

I cried in my car after a midterm I thought I had failed. (I got a B.) I missed a friend's wedding because the travel was too much. I gave up on the idea of being someone who finishes a four-year degree in four years. I gave up on a lot of plans I had at 19.

What I gained instead was a slower, more honest sense of what my life can be.

Walking across the stage

The graduation ceremony was in May 2026. My parents drove up. My sister came. My peer support specialist came. The dean shook my hand. I held the diploma — heavier than I expected — and I thought about the kid in the dorm room in 2017 who was so sure his life was over.

I have a job now, entry-level, remote, at a small software company. My health insurance covers my injection. I rent a small apartment. I'm 28. I am not where I thought I would be at this age. I am, by a thousand miles, somewhere I could not have imagined when I was 22.

What helped most

• A medication that actually worked, given the chance to work at a steady dose
• One person — a peer support specialist — who treated my future as if it still existed
• Accepting accommodations instead of trying to prove I didn't need them
• Starting with one class, not five
• A different major than the one I started with
• Time. A lot of time. Years of it.

If you're in the version of this story where you've just dropped out, please do not believe the voice that says it's over. See our guide on school accommodations and coordinated specialty care programs.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified mental health professional. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.