Those are all quite reasonable questions. The biggest difference was in not living the carefree life many people seem to think college should be -- but I suspec

Those are all quite reasonable questions. The biggest difference was in not living the carefree life many people seem to think college should be -- but I suspect people on Hacker News don't necessarily fall into that mindset to the same extent the general population might. As part of that, I had to actually consciously decide how to spend my time. Also, I chose a major (Business Administration) that interested me but was certainly easier to accommodate the tips I gave than something like an engineering degree would have been. I chased girls enough to find one I wanted to marry, planned a wedding, and got married before graduating. I played golf, skiied, went to concerts/movies, watched TV (usually while doing homework), played video games (TF2!), did programming/development for fun, etc.