4 ms·

Go to college. Take science to discover something you're good at. Take humanities to discover something you may love. Take at least one art or music clas

by edw519 14y ago

Go to college. Take science to discover something you're good at. Take humanities to discover something you may love. Take at least one art or music class. Take at least one advanced math class. Join a fraternity. Learn how to play bridge (and play all night sometime). Learn how to play foosball. Get drunk. Learn how to play foosball while drunk. Get laid. Play an intramural team sport. Get a part time job. Eat something you never tried before at least once/month. Get high. Do original research. Take a class you think you'll hate pass/fail. Do 5 minutes at a comedy club on open mike night. Hang out with a professor you like. Get laid. Do a web start-up on the side. Make a few friends for life. Go to at least one party each week. Pick a major you love whether it makes career sense or not. Get someone who has written one of your text books to sign it. Blog about your college experience. Get laid. Go to Europe with nothing but a backpack for a month or two. Enter a college talent show. Meet as many interesting (and boring) people as you can. Read good books. Go without shoes for a week just for the hell of it. Get laid. Graduate. If you don't go to college, exactly when do you expect to do all of this?

yukoncornelius 14y ago
Pass on the frat and join the rugby club. The beer is free and fitness is a by product of participation.
Deejahll 14y ago
Wow, I hate this advice. OP, if you are, like I was, completely repulsed by the constant insistence from everyone that you should go to college so you can toke, drink, party, and fuck: take heart, you can get a lot out of college without ever associating with meatheads and frat houses. The idiot carnival is not as prevalent as popular culture would have you believe; you can invest yourself into a hugely rewarding intellectual field, have excellent roommates that don't make you shove strange objects up your ass, and never even learn the name of your school's sports team, if that's more your style. Also: though it is certainly easy to do all of those things while racking up student loans or mooching the monetary equivalent of a new car off your parents, the implication that you can't do most of those things without (or after) college is simply wrong. I feel much more able to "do whatever I want" now that I'm out of college and successfully making money for a few years. I think college is important for the fundamentals it provides: data structures, mathematics, a vocabulary that helps you reason about (programming) problems. Exposure to concepts that you wouldn't otherwise know are useful. I met my wife in college too. But at the same time there's a lot that I think was both unavoidable and completely wasteful. On balance, I feel like I got a lot out of it, and I'm glad that I didn't let the people whose college experience was mainly about sex dissuade me from going. It is what you make of it.
jdelgado 14y ago
Not quite my idea of college, but thank you for the feedback at least! :)
- NateDad 14y ago
  Good. It's not always like that, and a lot of people who want college to be like that, flunk out.
j45 14y ago
The people who don't get the spirit of this post will miss the point and focus on the trees instead of the forest. Widen and expand your spectrum of experiences. Learn the difference between change and change for the better. Learn what being a real friend is so you can have others be real friends to you. Learn value. Your own value. The value you can provide others. Start a student group with a goal of it existing in 10 years and no one knowing who your were. Learn that it's not what your degree makes of you, but what you make of your degree.
rozap 14y ago
I don't think I know anyone who has done all these things. You pick and choose. There are only 24 hours in a day. But yes, college is an expensive way to figure out what you love doing. Even if that thing that you love doing is just hitting the bong and getting laid.

by edw519 14y ago

yukoncornelius 14y ago

Pass on the frat and join the rugby club. The beer is free and fitness is a by product of participation.

Deejahll 14y ago

Wow, I hate this advice. OP, if you are, like I was, completely repulsed by the constant insistence from everyone that you should go to college so you can toke, drink, party, and fuck: take heart, you can get a lot out of college without ever associating with meatheads and frat houses. The idiot carnival is not as prevalent as popular culture would have you believe; you can invest yourself into a hugely rewarding intellectual field, have excellent roommates that don't make you shove strange objects up your ass, and never even learn the name of your school's sports team, if that's more your style. Also: though it is certainly easy to do all of those things while racking up student loans or mooching the monetary equivalent of a new car off your parents, the implication that you can't do most of those things without (or after) college is simply wrong. I feel much more able to "do whatever I want" now that I'm out of college and successfully making money for a few years. I think college is important for the fundamentals it provides: data structures, mathematics, a vocabulary that helps you reason about (programming) problems. Exposure to concepts that you wouldn't otherwise know are useful. I met my wife in college too. But at the same time there's a lot that I think was both unavoidable and completely wasteful. On balance, I feel like I got a lot out of it, and I'm glad that I didn't let the people whose college experience was mainly about sex dissuade me from going. It is what you make of it.

jdelgado 14y ago

Not quite my idea of college, but thank you for the feedback at least! :)

NateDad 14y ago
Good. It's not always like that, and a lot of people who want college to be like that, flunk out.

j45 14y ago

The people who don't get the spirit of this post will miss the point and focus on the trees instead of the forest. Widen and expand your spectrum of experiences. Learn the difference between change and change for the better. Learn what being a real friend is so you can have others be real friends to you. Learn value. Your own value. The value you can provide others. Start a student group with a goal of it existing in 10 years and no one knowing who your were. Learn that it's not what your degree makes of you, but what you make of your degree.

rozap 14y ago

I don't think I know anyone who has done all these things. You pick and choose. There are only 24 hours in a day. But yes, college is an expensive way to figure out what you love doing. Even if that thing that you love doing is just hitting the bong and getting laid.