College Experiences! (Morals welcome)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So after years and years of study and guidance, I’ve finally made it to college. And after the first month, it’s not bad, I guess. But I can’t help but think I’m going about the entire experience incorrectly. I’m at a fairly nice school (just below Ivy League) so I suppose it’s a bit more tame than your average college, but I can’t shake the feeling it’s somehow my fault.

I want to experience everything that is unique to college life, but there are definitely times when my foresight prevails. As such, I think it might be possible that I am somehow sabotaging myself.

SO, is there any advice you would give to students beginning their first year at college? Are there any stories that you can tell to help us understand what to expect and watch out for over the next few years? And most importantly, are there any events that you are particularly proud of during your college experience, and what sort of things did you do to make them happen?

2

Study hard, but when you need to skip a class, skip a class. And don’t feel bad about it.

When you have the chance to have sex, do it. You will never have so many opportunities in your life. Seriously. No, really. (And yes, have safe sex!)

Try lots of things - yes, it’s true, college is the time to find out what you really want to do with your life. Even if that means playing a saxophone in New Orleans.

Most of all, enjoy your time. Make friends, hang out, recite poetry, watch stupid movies, get drunk…and have lots of sex.

3

Always re-read your class syllabus to re-check dates on major assignments and tests once a week.

4

Follow up to DB: And don’t skip class so frequently that you might miss a date change for turning assignment in.

Shrugs People do college different ways, and experience it differently. There is no RIGHT way. And everybody telling you’ve missed out by not doing X can be ignored. :wink:

THAT said… What I did in undergrad is different than what I did in vet school that what I’m doing now in grad school (yea, 8 years and counting in college, shut up). I am, believe it or not, much more social, outgoing, and daring now that I’m older. Heck, the “don’t come back home until sometime the next morning” didn’t start until halfway through vet school, and it wasn’t animal emergencies. :wink:

What I want to kick my undergrad self… It is not “You didn’t do X”, but “you didn’t try X”. Fairly low key, after all. Should’ve taken more care of myself, discover that the gym is not such a horrible place, done capoeira when I wanted it then. Instead, now I’m doing the stuff I wanted to do in undergrad but was too afraid/shy to do.

What you try hasn’t to be in, popular, easy, whatever. Try a leisure course offered by the university (if there is). You want to see some foreign film being offered? Why not? Check out sports you may like (there is more than football). Check out the restaurants. See if you’re interested in travellin abroad. Try out what you want.

I like leander’s post, minus [serious mode] drunk and sex. I like an occasional beer, and I have a low threshold, therefore I don’t drink much. Going to places or hanguing around with people where that’s all they do… sucks. I don’t mean talking and drinking or listening to music or dancing. I mean just drinking, little talk. Or ALWAYS going out to drink (instead of theater, movies, shopping, food, music, dance, sightseeing). The sex part is because tastes vary, and while I like sex very much, I’ve come to the conclusion I prefer quality to quantity. :wink: Both would be awesome, but that may be difficult to achieve, depending on where you are. In alcohol and sex, trust yourself, hear no others.[/serious mode]

5

One night I got so drunk, that by the time my 8:00AM macroeconomics class came around the next morning, I was still drunk from the night before.

Then, in the middle of a lecture about the Laffer curve or something, I blew chunks in a garbage can. Well, most of it got in the garbage can.

So, don’t do that.

6

Are you living in a dorm?

7

In my experience, there tend to be pockets of wilder stuff gong on at nicer schools, but it is a different experience from, say, the state college I went to. After all, I never heard about friends of friends on my campus smoking opium in the dorms.

What are you interested in? There’s probably a club or informal group devoted to it somewhere on campus. There are probably also clubs or groups that do things you aren’t sure you’ll like, but are willing to try anyway. Give it a try (with the exception of hard drugs-- it’s expensive and a stupid habit to form) and be aware of the people you’re surrounding yourself with. Have sex, don’t have sex, it’s up to you, but if you do, be safe about it. There are a lot of STIs out there that pass pretty quickly between young people who don’t practice safe sex every time, and somewhere on your campus, there are people giving condoms out for free. (Well, unless it’s a strict religious university…) I guarantee you that you’re going to be able to find free or really cheap contraception as a student, and if your university doesn’t provide it, Planned Parenthood does. (If you’re a guy, don’t worry about getting weird looks-- most PPs do male medical services as well.)

I also noticed you’ve only been there a month; the first month was tough for me and a lot of my peers. My theory is that the first month is always tough-- it’s the adjustment period to what is for most people a bunch of freedom with a relatively small amount of responsibility. Making friends and learning more about the place where I was to live for the next four years made a big difference, and one thing that helped during my sophomore year was having a part-time job-- for me, I had too much free time and I was frittering it away not taking care of my responsibilities. The added bonus is that you’ll have a little cash for expenses for the work, regardless of what it is.

One thing I wish I had done while in undergrad was studying abroad; I realize that, even if I had been single the whole time, I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it without student loans, and I’m not sure if the tradeoff would have been worth it. (That’s not entirely true; if I had done the “study abroad in Iceland” thing, I could have saved a ton of money by staying with relatives while I studied. However, it’s still expensive.) If you want to do it, work out a plan to get there-- take a job, save some money, and figure out how it’s going to work into your major coursework. Another thing that I should have done/wish I had done is more networking. My biggest problem was that I was changing majors at the beginning of Junior year, so I didn’t have my stuff together early enough to take as much advantage as I could have; if I had started earlier, I could have done in-depth research, made connections to people in my career field, and possibly had a related job to keep me afloat while I applied to grad school. (Well, I had a job offer, but the idea of staying in the town I went to college in didn’t really appeal. That said, I could have done an internship in my hometown as well and made connections there.)

8

Beware the Freshman 40.

Beer and pizza is what did it to me. I haven’t been down to my fighting weight since. Close, but hey … beer and pizza … I ain’t giving that up.

9

Especially since it’s supposed to just be the Freshman 15!

10

Maybe in the Ivy Leagues. State school … we go big time.

11

Ex-college prof here (as well as ex-college student of course).

Read ahead in the textbook. Actually prepare for the lecture. Don’t expect to understand all you read. But if something is still fuzzy after reading the book and the lecture, then you are in a great position to ask a question. The class is not a passive environment. You have to be active.

Don’t take notes during class. Pay attention instead. There have been studies that prove this works best. Seriously.

Regarding the human brain and memory. It takes at least a good overnight’s sleep to remember something at all. To really remember something, you need to periodically refresh it (with increasingly spaced out review periods). Note that this is the exact opposite of the usual all-night cramming that a college kid does.

In other words, everything stereotypical of a college student’s study habit is wrong!

Note that you will be expected to: do the work yourself (no copying from someone else), finish work on time, follow directions, maintain a schedule and keep to it, etc. This of course has nothing to do with real life work so please feel free to slam college as an ivory tower world out of touch with business reality.

Try to get on the “inside” of things. Paper grading, tutoring, working in a lab. Makes the whole college experience completely different.

12

Best things I did in college:
-Went to a few frat parties with dormmates before I decided it wasn’t for me. (moral, don’t prejudge experiences).
-got involved in theater as a extracurricular, which later became my minor (moral, find a community of likeminded individuals)
-tried a lot of really random classes my freshman year just because they sounded interesting – Buddhism… Political philosophy… Russian… Intro to Archaeology…ended up as an Anthropology major, who knew?(moral - you don’t know what you’re interested in until you try a lot of stuff you never tried before)
-When famous speakers came – Stephen Jay Gould and Jane Goodall – made point to attend, even though I was tired/busy/hungover. (moral - pay attention to the event listings in your department or college newspaper, some of those chances will never come again)
-Worked all but my first semester. At first in the library, later for an Anthropology professor. I didn’t make much, but the balance sheet always dwindling is depressing and nerve-wracking.
-took the maximum number of allowed “gym” credits (4 1-credit classes) to participate in sports I had always wanted to do more of (I took horseback riding, but my college offered windsurfing, winter camping, bowling, mountain biking, all kinds of things at a really reasonable rate)(moral - get credit for all the fun stuff you can)
-Couldn’t swing a semester abroad, but thanks to our “International Center” did a summer abroad, earning 6 transfer credits and 7 weeks in Bulgaria. By strategically selecting a program that offered me in-state tuition, the cost was actually less than a summer session at my (public, non-instate) university. (moral - don’t write off things as too expensive until you’ve really looked into it and talked to the right people.)

I have to disagree with the don’t take notes thing. It varies from person to person so no one set of advice applies to everyone. Personally I have virtually no auditory retention (I forget what I’ve heard 3 minutes later if I don’t write it down.) I have to take notes to get anything out of class – and I’m very, very good at it. As far as study habits do what works for you – if what you know is not working for you SEEK ASSISTANCE - it is readily available and free.

13

Just because it’s a tier 1 school doesn’t mean they don’t party. A lot of top schools attract ambitious work hard/play hard types. The difference is they manage to party and not fail out of school.

I would go with just trying to experience as much as possible in college. Join some clubs sports teams. Pledge a fraternity. Take interesting electives. Hit the local college pub frequently. Go on road trips with your friends. Bang a black chick. Whatever.

Try to avoid being one of those guys who spends their entire college years dong nothing but smoking pot and playing Asshole in their dorm room every weekend with their 4 buddies. Although you will probably do that a bit.

Son, fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.:smiley:

Myself isn’t always the best judge of these things.

14

Travel - Do it. Do the official semester/summer aborad thing through your school if you can. If not take a semester, summer, or year off and backpack around somewhere other than where you are at. Your school will understand, you can come back and finish, and it is no big deal to not finish exactly in four years.

I don’t have many regrets in life, but this is one. Wish I had taken the time to stumble through Europe for a couple of months. I plan to actively encourage my kids to do so.

15

Your drinking buddies may *feel *like your best friends. But that’s all they are: drinking buddies. (Or smoking buddies, or whatever.)

Took me a long time to learn the difference.

Nuthin’ wrong with drinking buddies. But keep the difference in mind.

16

Can you be more specific as to why you think you’re going about it incorrectly?

You haven’t said if you’re living on campus, but I think that’s the most important factor in making friends and having fun, for at least a year anyway. My best memories of freshman year are the parties, sporting events and late night chat sessions spent with dormmates. Leave your door open when possible so people can stop by and socialize. Invite people you don’t know very well to go to lunch in the cafeteria. Realize that most people just starting college probably have similar insecurities and adjustment issues - and they are a lot easier to handle when you have friends close by to commiserate with.

Absolutely skip a class here and there (hopefully not the day of the midterm), but don’t make it a habit. It’s the downfall of many a college student.

Try not to over-analyze the whole experience and have fun. Be spontaneous. Do stupid things (but not TOO stupid).

17

In response to Richard and Sarah, I am in fact living in a dorm. And I can shed some more light onto my own situation, but it’s very nice having this wide range of perspectives. The ones that keep coming up are Work, Travel, and leaving the comfort zone. All of which are solid, and I think I understand the importance. Keep them coming!

What I would like to point out is that my school is the one that was recently on the national news for its strange, new, and draconian policy on roommates and sex. I already feel like it’s home, but at this point frat parties are 90% people who have never actually been to parties in their lives, and all the sex that is being had is awkward “first time” sex (hence the misgivings when it comes to common courtesy). It’s a very tame freshman class, and they all feel like they’ve got something to prove.

And I’m mostly keeping myself away from these things, because I can’t bring myself to glorify them too much. And I sincerely hope I’m not missing anything there. All that stuff was fun to me a few years ago, but I’ve been jaded by the experience already.

I take lots of late-night walks, and I have never regretted a single one. I’ve met more friends that way than any other. I’ve gotten involved in theater, which is nice, but it’s strange how my hallmates seem like a second family and more nights are spent with them than anyone else. My classes are kind of set in stone freshman year, which is a shame, but I’m really not having too much trouble with them. Things are going well.

It’s just that they’re mostly uneventful. But maybe I’m just being impatient.

Thanks for the pointers, ftg

Finally,

Is something I need to write down.

18

I graduated from a small private liberal-arts college 20 years ago.

Now, 20 years later, I have only three “should’ves” but they’re big ones (for me, anyway):

[ul]
[li]I should have studied abroad for the whole of my junior year (not just one quarter), and in a non-English-speaking country.[/li][li]I should have double-majored: one humanities subject (which I did), one math/science (which I didn’t).[/li][li]I should have had more sex.[/li][/ul]

YMMV.

19

I hear what you’re saying about the frat party scene, but I’m wondering if you’re overgeneralizing a bit about the freshman class. For example, it seems unlikely to me that all the sex being had is “first time” sex. All I’m suggesting is to keep an open mind.

20

Sounds like you are well on your way. Two additional thoughts:

  • Clubs and activities (such as theater) are good ideas. They tend to cut across years, and often include some grad students as well. They are a good way to meet people and make friends with different majors and ages.

  • A lot of time you don’t recognize when your best memories are being made. In years to come, you may just look back on the late nights with your hallmates with longing and fondness.

Best of luck with the studies (and the fun, too!).