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So, college?

#61
I'll chip in only because I've read a few posts suggesting that 'party hard' is what you're supposed to be doing. FWIW, I'm a PhD candidate at the moment, and did a few years of work after graduating from college.

College parties have always seemed to me like children on the loose. Kids being out of their homes for the first time, overcompensating a bit, and generally not knowing how to treat themselves well. It is a waste of time and life, with potentially devastating implications. You can tell that this is true by the amount of warnings you're getting in this thread too.

Do not "party hard" because that's supposedly an important part of college life, party hard only and if you enjoy that. If that's not what you want to be doing, you're better off not doing it. College is about learning about yourself just as much as it is about the world. Find what you want to do and devote yourself to it. I am presuming that studying falls under what you want to do. Try other things, outdoor activities, travel, meet people. Party for a few weekends too, see how you feel about that.

The point is to learn about your subject matter, yourself, and the world. There's nothing else that you should be doing. Partying will make you learn about yourself and others, so you should try that. However, it's not that you should be doing that all the time, or enjoy it, or party harder if you're not enjoying it. It's also not true that you'll have remorse if you didn't get as wasted as your peers.

I'm repeating myself and will stop now.
 
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#63
When you're taking those first year gen eds, try this nifty rule: 3 hours studying/1 hour spent in class.

Also, sex is much better stress relief than alcohol and just as abundant at a typical university--it also does a better job of keeping the freshman 15 at bay.
 
#64
First of all congrats here's one great peice of advice.

After classes go straight to the library tell your friends you have class till an hour after they're out so you're tempted or vulnerable to get partying.

Do your homework at the library after class then you're all done and you can party and do whatever you like. Also it's fun to watch all the procrastinaters scramble it makes college less stressful.
 
#66
Dale D Dilly said:
When you're taking those first year gen eds, try this nifty rule: 3 hours studying/1 hour spent in class.

Also, sex is much better stress relief than alcohol and just as abundant at a typical university--it also does a better job of keeping the freshman 15 at bay.
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People at colleges tend to be a bit more open minded about sex too.

It's a chance to try things out. And as far as sex being better than alcohol that's way true.

The discussion I have with one my best friends is whether sex is better than diesel. She prefers diesel. As soon as she gets out of jail I'm sure we'll have this same discussion.

Sex is legal.
 
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#67
slobake said:
There are several companies that promoted me to management mostly because I am a hard worker and have good communication skills. I reached a certain level of management and couldn't past that because I didn't have a college degree. My co-worker who has a degree in music was promoted. You see it happen all the time, companies don't care what your degree is in as much as they care if you have one.
I have a question for those of you who know a lot more about higher education than I do. Do you think there is a lot more to college than preparing for a career? I think that at one time universities were a place you went to become a more rounded person. Is that true?
I have met many "successful" people who were miserable. Right now Robin Williams comes to mind. Would things be different for him if he had learned more about being a human being and dealing with life's struggles?
First time caller long time listener, I'll take my answer off the air. :)
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The more the cost of college has gone up (and it's gone up way faster than general inflation), the more pressure there's been to justify education in terms of career and income. It is true and continues to be true that college grads average higher incomes than non-college grads. When you factor the debt in, what you wind up with is a graph with two lines, one for college grads and one for high school grads, charting total prosperity. High school grads who go to work right away are initially better off - they're making money and not racking up debt. Over a number of years, the lines start to converge, and then after a certain point the college grads' line rises higher - their salaries go up more and their debts get paid off. It used to be the lines crossed about 10 years out; I suspect with the massive debt current students have to take on, it's been pushed out further than that, maybe 15-20 years.

At this point someone interjects with a story about person X who went to fancy-schmancy upper crust university and is still living at home with their parents, while person Y never went to college and is a millionaire. Yes, I know, there are outliers. I'm talking statistical outcomes here.

But to the heart of the issue - I definitely think education is about more than job training. That's a very limited and, in my view, very scary view of what higher education is for. Understanding literature, history, and philosophy are not entertainments for dilettantes. They are vital to understanding the world we live in and to building a civilization of people who can reflect on the world and its problems with complexity and depth. There's an important pun in the phrase "liberal arts," "artes liberales" in Latin. "Artes" are skills. "Liber," depending on whether you use a long or short I, can mean "book" (as in library) or "free man" (as in liberty). In other words, the liberal arts may be "book-learning" in one sense, but they are also the skills of free people. Failing to cultivate them makes us slaves - of the dollar, of the sound bite, of our animal instincts. I think the more people get a liberal education, the better - not in the sense of making them vote democrat, but in the sense of making them into educated people who can think for themselves and follow the complexity of an issue.

Having said that, a big question in current higher education is whether we are supposed to be "forming character," teaching particular morals or values to students. In the days when most schools were religious foundations, the answer to that seemed self-evident. Today it's more complicated. There's a lot more suspicion of any one value system that would be "the" one to teach. Many schools do, however, require or at least encourage some degree of volunteerism or community involvement; you don't have to support any one cause, but you have to find SOME cause to be involved in. Many feel that free inquiry itself carries its own set of values - honesty, hard work, curiosity, and respect for others - and that that's as much character formation as we can ask for.

College doesn't solve anyone's life problems. It can give you more tools to think about them with, and maybe help work for solutions, but there are plenty of dysfunctional educated people. Robin Williams had a fair amount of schooling, at Claremont-McKenna, some community college, and then Juilliard. He left Juilliard without graduating because they told him they had nothing else to teach him (according to Wikipedia, anyway).
 
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#68
When I was a young child there was a show on TV about a person who couldn't afford to attend college so he would sit in on classes when students would cut. He operated a lunch truck. I started at Rutgers when I was 30. People would tell me how it is is easy to attend college when I was essentially middle aged. It's not.

But I would recall this show and drive on until I graduated.

I wish I could remember the name of this show. It was sponsored by the Bel System The old phone company.
 
#69
BawanaRik said:
When I was a young child there was a show on TV about a person who couldn't afford to attend college so he would sit in on classes when students would cut. He operated a lunch truck. I started at Rutgers when I was 30. People would tell me how it is is easy to attend college when I was essentially middle aged. It's not.

But I would recall this show and drive on until I graduated.

I wish I could remember the name of this show. It was sponsored by the Bel System The old phone company.
Click to expand...
It was called "Hank"
Invalid Link Removed
 
#71
Call home once in a while.
Make sure you don't leave anything at home you don't want anyone to find.
People at college lived very different lives than you.
Don't post dumb stuff on any Social Media.
Toilet paper is a very valuable commodity.
Anything can be stolen.

And this...
 
#72
Realize you're forking out between $100-300 every time you walk into that classroom, then go to every class.

I wasted thousands of dollars by being too hung over in college to go to class.

It's a sad realization nearly ten years later.
 
#74
More ideas.

If you don't have a planner/scheduler, a paper one, get one. Use it.

Get some exercise everyday. Walk, run, play ball, something. Every day. It will keep you in shape, and help you deal with the stress of school. And eat a healthy diet, too.

Get to know your teachers. Go to office hours, at least to say hello.

When taking an essay test, in class, write down a quick outline of what you want to say. It will help you organize, and the teacher may give you partial credit for something in the outline, but not in the essay, as you at least thought of it.

edg
 
#75
Don't fall behind. You have a lot more freedom (not to attend classes, etc.). Also, remember, most class grades are based solely on the final exam. It's easy to say "I'll do it tomorrow". DON'T!!!!

Keep up to date, keep a regular schedule. Don't skip classes. May sound uncool, but it will make life easier, and give you more time to do the things you want to.

Try out different things - interesting classes, voice lessons. You will have access to things you never had before.

Moderation.
 
#76
bass_case said:
What's your school? My son just turned 17 and will start school next year. He wants to go to school in NC (Duke or UNC-CH) but he's prepaid within FL. He has excelllent grades and scores but it's probably not affordable. There's not that much money for merit scholarships, almost all aid is need-based and we're too rich to qualify but to poor to afford it.
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NCSU. I got accepted to Chapel Hill but they didn't have an Engineering program.
 
#77
Some notes about partying: Don't assume that you can get away with it, just because others seem to be doing it and still getting through their studies. That's misleading because: 1) Some of those kids have jobs waiting for them when they graduate, thanks to family. 2) Many of those kids are in fluff majors. I taught 3rd year engineering for one semester at a Big Ten university. My students were serious. I also taught a couple sections of freshman at the same time.

Now for my opinion as an old fart: A large state university is an elite college hidden within a giant party school. The elite college is like a source of wealth (intellectual, career, etc.) that you can stuff your pockets with, but you have to seek it out and grab it. Sometimes it means being a PITA, such as banging on your department or the registrar's office to get you into a course section that you need in order to stay on track. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The things you can look for and dig up are: The meaty majors, the hard courses (within your limits, don't overload yourself first semester), research projects that you can join, etc.

It is also an inevitable consequence of being a large organization that a university unavoidably lets a fair number of students fall through the cracks. Some of my math students screwed themselves out of their chosen majors by pledging for fraternity/sorority instead of hitting the books. Their freshman grades determined which majors they could get into. That's not to frighten you, but to suggest using your freshman year as a chance to get the biggest head start possible.

Don't get me wrong, I had fun in college. A lot of fun. But I kept my eye on what ultimately mattered.

An odd note: I read about a study showing that students retain very little of a lecture if they try to take notes on a computer. The time honored way of taking notes still works: By hand, on paper. Then, before too many hours have passed, re-copy your notes and organize the information as you do so. That can be done with the computer. That process of re-organizing what you just heard is an absolutely killer study technique. I resisted doing it, but it's what my classmates did who got better grades than me, and I now believe the merit of it
 
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#79
I graduated from uni this past December. Here are a few crucial things I learned:

- Go to your first day of class for every class (aka: syllabus day). Yeah, it's boring, but teachers will often say some very crucial things that first day that they might not mention ever again.

- Go to every class (that you can). Understandably, things come up, but college is far too expensive to be missing class just because you don't feel like waking up one day (which will happen a lot, mind you).

- APPLY YOURSELF. This is my biggest regret. I was always able to get As and Bs in my classes while doing the most minimal amount of studying. I was that guy. That said, because I'm naturally quick at catching on to things, I never really took the time to really delve into my studies and to try and take something away from them. Looking back, there were a lot of good things I could have learned in college that I'll now need to relearn because I didn't pay enough attention the first time to make them really sink in.

- Experiment. You'll likely find yourself with plenty of play time during the course of any given day (although it won't seem like it at the time [just wait until you begin working 50+ hours a week]). Use this time to try new things, go new places, and meet new people. Be adventurous. Find your inner child who used to asked questions about anything and everything. Explore the world and yourself. Find out what really makes you tick both positively and negatively.

- Don't waste your time on people and activities that bring you no value. It's not worth it. Time is too short. Period.

- Carry a lighter on you, even if you don't smoke.

- Don't start smoking, or quit if you already do.

- Use your electives to take classes on things you think you might be interested in. Don't sandbag those electives and take easy, free A classes. Use them as a chance to figure out if there's something you'd rather major or minor in.

- Use your electives to take easy classes. Let's be real, you're gonna need them to boost your GPA. We all did :P

- Never take the minimal amount of classes in a semester. Always take at least one additional one, in case you need to drop a class due to you failing out of it.

- DO NOT TRUST YOUR CAREER ADVISER! Many of them have zero clue as to what they are talking about or what classes you need to take in order to graduate on time. Do your own research and question everything they say. You do not want to find out that you're going to have to wait an entire semester to take a pre-req that you need to move on because it's only offered in the fall when the adviser said you could just take it in the spring.

- Buy your own printer, flash drive, and external hard drive. Save everything religiously.
 
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#80
Start thinking about summer internships now. Get a job or volunteer in your field now. Ideally you will be hired before you ever even graduate.
Don't be afraid of strangers.
Don't get drunk until you are done with homework.
You are paying for school so don't waste your money by cutting classes.
Don't get arrested for underage drinking.
Don't get a serious girlfriend at home. Long distance isn't worth it.
 

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