Ask Lemmygrad

Yup, my overprotective family really hurt my ability to succeed in college. When you are in a situation where you cannot thrive living at your parents' home, your first goal should be to find the means to be independent from your parents and manage to be stable for a year or two. Also, find good friends, or risk depression like I experienced. I hated living in dorms, and I wish I started in the college provided apartments as they were much cheaper, didn't enforce an expensive meal plan, and allowed students to stay year-round. However, I went to apartment dorms in my second attempt at community college, and I didn't succeed in major part due to a toxic roommate (and needing to walk an hour each way to an exhausting, retail part-time job that paid peanuts). It may be preferable to find an affordable apartment (difficult to come by these days) further away from campus as rowdy young adults can be difficult to live around (maintaining a quiet voice can be difficult, and I accidentally disturbed neighbors when I was singing to myself to help me focus (I have AuDHD)), though one's mileage may vary, considering the first apartment dorms I moved in at the first university I attended had a decent roommate (I didn't succeed in my second semester because it took me over a month to move after classes began and led to me being extremely behind on classes). Online college in this scenario is highly recommended because attending physical classes on top of work is very demanding and will cause burnout.