TL;DR at bottom
3 part Narrative:
Part 1: How I got into the "C-D-F student hole." Part 2: How I got out. Part 3: Where I'm at now.
Part 1: How I got into the "C-D-F student" hole.
Graduated from US public HS at 17 in 2006, got a full ride to a top-30 nationally ranked state school based on test scores.
Got to college. Lived w/ the RA on my floor in the dorm. Played college lacrosse. B/c I'm playing ball & living w/ an RA, I'm not socializing much outside of the team.
'06-'07 was the peak in poker popularity too. Online poker was legal(ish) in the US. Since I'm not socializing, when I'm not playing ball, I'm playing cards. I'd started at 15 playing for $5 buy-ins w/ friends. By the end of my first month in college, I'm playing in a min buy-in 50, max buy in 1$-$2 NL live Hold-'em game twice a week. When I'm not live playing, I'm on Stars & Full-Tilt 4-tabling $50 to $200 heads up games at a time (depending on bankroll) or 6 tabling single table tourneys. If I'm not playing, im reading poker books, memorizing odds and studying my hand histories for tendencies. My game is inconsistent (remember, still a novice) but I'm managing to pull in anywhere from $500-$800 a week. I'm spending all this time on cards and no time studying.
By November, parents see I haven't used the bank account they gave me in several months. By now I'm 18 and am using what was then Wachovia for my poker $$. They come up, think I'm selling drugs for cash. I show them that my $$ is coming from gambling.
We go to Wachovia, empty and close the accounts. I promise not to play cards anymore. By now damage is done. I withdraw from a couple courses and salvage what I can. I get on academic probation at the end of the semester.
The following spring I quit the lacrosse team and join a fraternity. I pledged which, if you haven't pledged a fraternity at a state school in the south before, you should know is a 24/7 gig, or was at that point in time. (I realize things have changed a lot in the last 10 yrs w/ regards to hazing and fraternities etc.) I still hadn't learned my lesson and I didn't prioritize my classes.
When I'm not in class or pledging I'm partying and falling in love on a weekly basis. Never a big drinker, now I'm drinking almost daily except on days I'm assigned for what we called "safe ride" aka being a DD for the brothers. I pass but my grades are poor. I'm off probation but lose my full ride. I now have to pay for school. On top of that, my grades are so bad I no longer qualify for the business college and have to change majors to a liberal arts degree. My choice: Political Science.
I attend summer school and do well. Sophomore Fall starts, and the cheapest option by far is to live in the fraternity house, so that's what I do. Bad move. Grades are nonexistent. For example, I had an everyday Spanish class I took to meet my foreign language requirement. I missed something like 22 classes in that class for the semester. I end up withdrawing from college for the semester. I go on struggling to find a life balance with my living situation partying and school through the end of my junior year. I change majors again and end up majoring in my native language: English.... (I know).
Part 2: How I got out of the hole.
At my school juniors and seniors have to meet with advisers to start thinking about careers/life after college. I had a very honest counselor who painted for me a starkly bleak picture of the situation I was in. My options were basically be a teacher (no offense meant, I love literature) or bust. Without more on the resume, I simply wasn't an attractive candidate for employers or grad schools. I go back to my hometown, panicked, and explain to my parents the severity of my situation. They're like "no shit, are you finally waking up?"
I make the decision to try for law school. I move out of the fraternity house and into an apartment off campus. I pick up a part time job at Ben and Jerrys making $6.75/hr. I tack on and take any internship I can get my hands on. I take a max course load for my senior year and then add an academic redshirt season (a 5th year of school) and bust my ass in both of my senior years.
I get into a nationally ranked top 100 law school in my home state. I do OK there, not great, but timely graduate.
Part 3: Where I am now:
I work in the legal and real estate fields. I have a modest investment portfolio. I own my car. I rent a home, but don't own one. I play cards a few times a year (less than 5), w/ friends in a home game.
I'm happy, but not content or fulfilled. I'm not a victim, I made choices. They were often ill-informed and/or poorly thought out, but they were choices and they were mine. Those choices had consequences. I often wonder what would have happened had I made different choices. When I'm off-center, I lament the poor ones that I've made. I think I surely could have benefited from a year off, a so-called "gap-year."
Nevertheless, I'm at a stable place in life and am optimistic about my future. I'm content in that I know I am where I am in life because of the choices I've made. Having experienced both the positive and negative consequences of those choices has made me more aware of how I approach each day. As Emerson once said:
"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else."
TL;DR
Partied hard, crashed and burned. Got up, partied hard again, crashed and burned again. Finally woke up, got a min wage job, discovered hard work, got to know myself. Worked to become a lawyer. Still party hard, but a lot less frequently.