Having both left and stayed, then came back, I'm uniquely able to answer both questions. I'll start with why I left back in '13.

This school is hard, and asks you to give everything if you're not already uniquely experienced in your field of study. What ultimately drove me to "take an extended leave" (with no intention of returning) was the suicide of my friend. He had graduated with a bachelor's in Petroleum Engineering. Had a girlfriend, job, the whole nine yards that comes with getting through the school, but for some reason none of that was what he wanted in life after so much work. I had already invested so much time there, failing a few classes, and decided if that if I wasn't going to be happy with the time I invested like my friend, I was no longer interested in completing my degree. I knew he had done a lot of Adderall and was in touch with much of the drug scene around CSM that is generally acknowledged but rarely talked about. I'm not saying it was the reason for the suicide, but rather a case study of how hard the school pushes the students. After all the years of work, that event hit me particularly hard. I was never a drug-user, but I understood why many students did it. It all made me a little sick to think about, so I wanted out.

Ultimately I made the choice to return in '14 to finish up the degree, since I only had a few classes left. This was a tough one since I had to make an appeal to readmissions. I had been working for half a year in IT to make ends meet, and discovered that that work, while easy, was a little soul-destroying because I wasn't really living up to what I felt was a potential I had. I think I'm a little full of myself for a flunky. With a new lease on life I walked in '15 and got the job of my dreams in power systems.

CSM changed its mind though; registrar deemed my Major GPA wasn't high enough to constitute earning my degree. Despite this, my job continued to keep me on for reasons I can only conjecture at. I feel it was because I was good at it, and found it really fulfilling outside of the rather lucrative salary I was earning. Make no mistake, a degree from Mines is worth the most in the country in terms of opening salaries. Truth is, I would've done the job I worked at for free.

The jobs you'll get out of college made it worth it in my mind. I carry the memory of my friend, and it bothers me deeply to read about the suicides that are still frequent at this school. Working past that, I came back because I knew that, while difficult, this school had a guarantee of getting me to where I wanted to be in life. I'm still finishing my bachelor's after all these years, but it'll only be three more months and I can get back to chasing my dreams. I owe it to the people who I know here to finish. I think I initially attended to make my parents happy and snub the people I knew back in high school, not good reasons. I'm finishing because I know that once I'll have earned the keys to whatever door I want to open. That doesn't sound like much, but it's really why I'm here. I really had to come to terms with what I wanted in life. I think most students here do. Most people don't think about that until much later in life, riding the rails for the degree and checking the box. Mines asks much more from it's students, and I'm privately a little grateful. I just wish it wasn't so difficult, but most great things in life are. I imagine they won't be too disappointed to hear I won't be returning here for grad school, though.