College

[antemortem]

This thread is for those currently in college, going into college, or those that have graduated and have experiences on which to openly reflect/advice to give to others. Tell us where you're trying to go, where you've applied, if you've been accepted, and so forth; I want to hear it all, personally!

As of today, I'm committed to Bard College at Simon's Rock! I was graciously granted scholarships totaling ~$50,000 so I'm really fortunate to be going to this school. This is the end of my junior year, but they are an accelerated/early college that accepts high school students before graduation in order to begin degree paths early. I'm likely to pursue a degree in performance arts/film. :pink_love:

 

[Pepperton]

i as of a couple of days ago will be attending texas a&m in the fall as an undergraduate in the engineering honors college, pursuing my bachelors in computer science. i also got into the likes of ucla ucsd uci ut-austin ut-dallas and usc and was rejected from rice carnegie mellon, and waitlisted, then rejected, at brown.

as much as i wanted to be a bruin they gave me no scholarship and my 'rents were unwilling to pay the oos tuition. so it was between utd uta and a&m, uta was unappealing to me as i wanted to get away from home, so it was between utd and a&m. utd was only an option bc they gave me a full ride, but in the end i decided money was less important than fit, and committed to a&m.

i'd say as advice that once you enter hs, its a dogfight to get top grades. work your ass off if you want to go somewhere, because theres really no guarantee, and if you want the best chance, you have to go the extra mile, and im not exaggerating. if you feel at any point in your studying you've 'done enough' then you haven't. of course, if you have more specific and personal goals in mind then this advice is non applicable but im speaking to anyone like me haha

also big congrats to dave glad to see you are having great success in life i love you man thats so wonderful to see.

 

[Margot]

1. Have fun: you will likely never have this much beautiful free time on your hands again. Enjoy it!

2. Internships and jobs are your friend: it is not easy competing against 100+ applicants when you all have the same basic background. Having some work experience goes a long way.

3. You are not your grades and don't ruin yourself trying to get the best. Unless you're in a Stem field, your GPA is hardly ever going to come up. Especially after you've been working for more than a year.

4. HAVE FUN HAVE FUN HAVE FUNNN.

 

[Bay]

Having graduated some time ago, Kyoko has some good advice, but I would like to add a couple more

-If you have some room/time, join a fraternity/sorority or club. You might get some networking opportunities, both from friends you made and outside sources.

-Take advantage of your university's career center. They should have services where someone can help you check your resume, career research, interview practices, and networking.

-Take advantage of your professor's office hours. Besides getting help with studies, they might help you with letter recommendations and perhaps they might hook you up with someone they know (yes, networking lol).

Notice how all of these I mention networking, because, yeah, pretty much it's about who you know. One of the regrets I have after graduating is I wasn't aggressive enough with networking. Since you're going for performance arts/film, you'll most likely need all the connections you can get.

 

[antemortem]

as much as i wanted to be a bruin they gave me no scholarship and my 'rents were unwilling to pay the oos tuition. so it was between utd uta and a&m, uta was unappealing to me as i wanted to get away from home, so it was between utd and a&m. utd was only an option bc they gave me a full ride, but in the end i decided money was less important than fit, and committed to a&m.

also big congrats to dave glad to see you are having great success in life i love you man thats so wonderful to see.

wild ride. Texas A&M was less than 30 minutes away from where I lived in Texas before I moved to Alabama, and that campus is ridiculously nice. I respect your choice of school despite the scholarships to the other school, hopefully you get out of it all that you're expecting so it's a worthwhile venture. and thank you, that means a lot!

Notice how all of these I mention networking, because, yeah, pretty much it's about who you know. One of the regrets I have after graduating is I wasn't aggressive enough with networking. Since you're going for performance arts/film, you'll most likely need all the connections you can get.

Absolutely, and trust me, my connections 978 miles north of where I currently live will be little to scarce to none. if my concentration (Bard's concept of majors) doesn't change before my junior year, that will be kept in mind and hopefully I can establish some connections and get somewhere. appreciate it, man.

 

[Star-Lord]

Take it seriously.

I goofed off majorly in my first few years, and if you wanna progress into postgraduate studies it's hard to do that with a low GPA.

 

[Alex]

let's be real you're all going to just sit in your room and play video games, so try to find some people to play games with

 

[Dusk]

In my first two years of college, I did very well academically and was involved in a lot of extracurricular activities that... probably didn't mean much in the end since I didn't effectively network. I had a poor social life, as I still do now. I wish I had been a little more... thoughtful of what I was doing and made backup plans in case my first major turned out to not be for me (which it wasn't). Right now I've been on break from college for almost two years now and a really need to figure out what to change my major to and return to college and eventually graduate so I can move on with my life.

 

[pkmin3033]

Well, I graduated from University a few years ago now, but I have some general advice for studying that may or may not be useful:

1. Find a style of learning that works for you and roll with it. Experiment early on so you don't freak out when exams come around and you find things leaking out of your brain the second you've read them; if you know how you learn best from the beginning, you won't have to waste time later finding out when you could be revising. Get a system in place before anything else so you don't have to worry about it.

I personally recommend copying your notes out neatly once and then putting those onto flash cards and taking them with you everywhere and reading them in every spare moment you get come revision, and doing practice questions until your eyes bleed, but that's just me. Get a dictophone if you can afford it - or record stuff on your phone; whatever - and try that too, as you'll probably miss a lot in lectures even if you're given copies of the presentation. Brainstorm. Draw diagrams/maps. Whatever helps. Regardless, keep extensive notes and keep them organised. Start from the beginning and it'll be easy to keep it up and sort it all out when you revise.

2. Don't force yourself to revise for exams. Quality is better than quantity; pulling an all-nighter before the exam, or working for hours on end weeks in advance, doesn't guarantee you'll remember any of it. Never do more than you're comfortable with, stop the second you're tired or fed up for at least half an hour's break, and don't fret about how much you're doing compared to others. I did a maximum of four solid hours a day in the morning compared to the full day my friends were doing and I got higher marks than most of them. Revise when you're most alert, whenever that is, and don't feel like you need to do more than you're comfortable with. Draw up a minimum timetable and stick to it, but don't make it overly ambitious. If you can find a group of friends to revise will that's great too if you all work to the same schedule; it's often a lot easier and faster to ask a friend than it is a tutor and you'll inevitably fill in one another's blanks.

3. Back up your work regularly. You would be AMAZED at how few people do this. It sounds like common sense, but sooooo many people don't back their work up and lose it. Save it on your laptop, attach it to an e-mail and send it to yourself, and put it on a USB stick. At least. Every time you work on something. Every. Time. The only thing more painful than writing a long essay is losing it, and the one time you don't do it that is exactly what will happen to you. Trust me. It WILL happen. Technology hates students.

4. Use MS Word for referencing. Seriously, all you have to do is fill out the fields and you can insert citations and a bibliography at the end with ease. Referencing is a real pain, and it's often required for academic essays. One of my University lecturers told me about this in my third year...up to that point I'd been doing it with each book/source. It took me hours. Use MS Word. Save yourself the headache.

5. Ask for help if you need it. Do it privately out of class if you're not comfortable asking in lessons - and most people aren't, you will inevitably get only one or two people who actively participate in discussions whilst the rest sit silent - but ask. It's what the lecturers are there for, and establishing a good working rapport with them makes learning from them and just talking to them much easier. It helps. I doubt I would have done half as well as I did if I wasn't on good speaking terms with 90% of my lecturers (one or two I really did not get on with) and felt comfortable enough to just wander up to the office floor of the building to run over a question with them when they were around.

I might edit this post later with more. It took me years to learn this stuff though; when I started University my work ethic was pretty terrible and I kept mostly to myself. I wound up with a 1st Class Honors Degree and a Postgraduate with Merit though. If it works for you and helps, great. If not...well, eh. Just ignore me. xD

 

[Esper]

Try lots of things. Go to extracurricular lectures, join school clubs, take a class that you wouldn't normally take. Get a taste of different disciplines and talk with people about what they're studying. If you're not sure about what you're doing, or if you're even just a little unsure, this will help you maybe stumble across the field of your dreams or reinforce that what you're pursuing is the right thing for you.

 

[Fannie]

Take it seriously.

I goofed off majorly in my first few years, and if you wanna progress into postgraduate studies it's hard to do that with a low GPA.

Yes this was me I could have made it much easier for myself.

 

[Livewire]

It's already been mentioned, but have some fun while you're there. Yes, take your grades seriously and yes, have a career path and plan, but if all you're at school to do is just be a drone and immediately go into a career field, you'll find yourself probably mentally burned out and changing careers by 30, it happens pretty frequently; you were meant to do more than get a mortgage, pay bills, and die. Explore, try new things, get outside of your comfort zone and test yourself, it will only help you down the road. And start practicing budgeting your money, apply for an income-driven repayment plans for your student loans, and for god's sake don't get married during or right out of school either.

 

[maccrash]

I just committed to Providence College for the fall, gonna be majoring in English which is Career Suicide but you only live once, motherfucker. I'm really kind of terrified about leaving all my friends behind and the girl I'm into is moving 1,000 miles away and it's all gonna be New And Crazy but overall I'm kind of excited for it. kind of. it's still deeply frightening and I'd like to have another four years of high school, but that's not gonna get me anywhere thinking about it, so I try not to. the feeling of moving on up is pretty neat.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

I am currently a Senior at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. While I did study Nursing for two years which included working at Brigham and Woman's Hospital on a maternity floor and a general floor, I ended up transferring over to Human Services where I plan on finishing my Bachelor's Degree in the spring of 2017. I plan on becoming a Kindergarten teacher and already have a few job opportunities lined up which is a pretty great feeling to have. Once teaching, I will have up to five years to obtain my Master's in Early Education, which I plan to obtain at the least expensive school possible.

When I was a senior in high school, I applied to five schools: Northeastern University, Quinnipiac University, University of Connecticut (UCONN), Fairfield University, and Saint Anslem University. I ended up going 5/5 with acceptances, including basically a half-ride in scholarships to Qunnipiac and several other scholarships elsewhere. I ended up turning down the scholarships for Northeastern University because of it's exceptional co-op program as well as the brand recognition, and thus my college experience kicked off in the fall of 2012.

My advice on students going into college? Don't fret about becoming the "popular" kid. Friends will find you. And if not, it's the worst thing ever. You'll learn how to mature and become your own person, which is something that I think is honestly difficult to do while in high school. Enjoy the moment and make the best out of your time in college. If I could do one thing over, I would try to care less about what other people thought of me and just be myself and follow my own path. Cliche in a way, but I've seen so many people do that that it's worht mentioning.

I just committed to Providence College for the fall, gonna be majoring in English which is Career Suicide but you only live once, motherfucker. I'm really kind of terrified about leaving all my friends behind and the girl I'm into is moving 1,000 miles away and it's all gonna be New And Crazy but overall I'm kind of excited for it. kind of. it's still deeply frightening and I'd like to have another four years of high school, but that's not gonna get me anywhere thinking about it, so I try not to. the feeling of moving on up is pretty neat.

Yo bro, my brother went there. If you want any tips about the campus life there, just hit me up and I can let you know all the juicy details. Plus, I live 30 minutes from Providence so if you ever want alcohol to chill, just let me know! (:

 

[Adore]

I never bothered applying to a four-year university fresh out of high school because I knew I couldn't handle it and I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I took a gap year, figured it out, and went the frugal route. Now I'm currently attending community college for graphic design, trying to earn credits and build a good portfolio before transferring to CSULB/CSUF/UCLA/Cal Poly SLO/some other good design school that ungodly expensive.

Getting there has been a slow process, but I really lucked out at my CC. The professors are very knowledgeable and actively work in their field. Plus the community of artists is really upbeat, friendly, and not pretentious at all. Basically, it's an awesome high-energy environment that will whip you into good shape very fast.

As for advice...

It's better to take a smaller course load and excel than it is to take a large course load and do poorly.

Take it seriously or move out of the way for someone who will. Regardless of whether it's private, public, or community college, there's hundreds/thousands lined up out the door who want the opportunity you've been given. Appreciate it and be humble.

Unless you have a reason that makes it impossible, ALWAYS SHOW UP TO CLASS! You are PAYING FOR IT! Don't let hundreds or thousands of dollars go to waste by being lazy.

Get a planner and put all of your project, exam, final dates on it. Most likely, everything is gonna be due on the same week since everyone's on more-or-less the same schedule. So get your projects done and turned in ahead of time whenever possible to avoid last-minute crunches.

Lastly, remember that whatever you put into it is what you'll ultimately get out of it. If you put in minimal effort, don't expect to learn a lot or get great grades.

 

[maccrash]

Yo bro, my brother went there. If you want any tips about the campus life there, just hit me up and I can let you know all the juicy details. Plus, I live 30 minutes from Providence so if you ever want alcohol to chill, just let me know! (:

awesome dude. may have to take you up on that offer. and I'll totally pick your brain on that sometime soon!

 

[NintendoQueen]

I'm a college graduate, and the biggest advice I can give to those currently in it or are going to be in college soon is DO YOUR BEST! Even when college gets really tough (which it will) do not give up and always give it your best. Seriously. <3

 

[Bellsprout]

next week i have two finals and then my semester is officially over!!! Friday was my last day of classes so i got out, bought a 12 pack, and rejoiced.

 

[Majestic Electric]

Next week I have 3 finals and then my first year of college will be officially over! Now onto summer school to get some GE (general education) courses out of my hair...

 

[Mawa]

- Do your reading assigment even if you feel like you don't need it.
- Don't bring a laptop in class in you can work without it. It's a big distraction.
- Find a good partner for projects, and stay. with. this. person.
- Have a good relation with your teachers. You never know how much they can believe in you and help you through stuff.
- If there is a psychology service on your campus, don't be afraid to use it. You are not weak.
- Don't forget about your friends if you aren't in the same classes or college.
- Don't blow all your money on silly things.
- Show up to your classes. you pay too much money to skip them.
- Be active in the student life. It might help for future scholarship.
- Don't be afraid to change your study field if you feel like you don't like it.
- Threat you well.
- Find a good roommate. And don't forget, there is no cohabitation that don't have any problems. It's normal, talk things out. Don't keep it for yourself.
- Don't move with your boyfriend/girlfriend after only a year!

Enjoy!