(I guess this a pretty vague question, but I don't want to clog up #vaguequestionsbypablo so I figured I'd leave the ctag blank and let you guys decide)
I'm leaving for a week-long trip to the Northeastern US composed mostly of a series of visits to 5 colleges in a couple days (#tripreport# to come) and I wondered what college was like for all you 20+ Hubskiers out there.
What program were you in? Did you enjoy it? I've heard people say that there's no such thing as "the right school" - every college is different, but some aren't objectively better than others. Do you feel like you made a good choice? Why did you choose the school you did?
We all know the stereotype of the college partier - did you party a lot? Or did you choose to spend most of your time working? How do you feel looking back on that decision? What would you change if you could do it over again?
Looking forward to reading your thoughts on the subject.
I tutor high school kids as a part-time job. Lots of them about to go to The Big University, clueless about what to do. Here's what I always tell them:
1. No college degree is gonna be great all the time, no matter what the University Propaganda Machine tells ya. Look up the courses that you'd get with a degree: it tells you WAY more about what the degree is about than most info talks. If you find more than half of the courses interesting, it's worth looking into.
2. Be open to all studies. Don't judge a book by its cover. I had the idea in my head that I wanted to do something with CS or AI, because programming is useful and robots are cool. So I went around the country looking at universities and found...nothing. It turned out to be nothing for me. I had no clue what to do now, because I was so sure I wanted to be a programmer. So in an evening of desperation I said FUCK IT and went to the nearest university's site and read everything, about every degree you can get. That's when I found urban planning - in a small corner on the site, barely advertised because the number of people who start it every year can't even fill a bus. I would have never given it a chance if I judged it by its cover.
3. Find that inner drive, don't give up until you've found it. You're gonna do something for a while, better get something that you're so interested in that you'll look stuff up yourself. Think of what you like to read about (what tags here, for example?) and look into related studies.
4. Never be the smartest person in the room. This is not just literal advice: uni is a place where you can learn so much, just by paying attention and asking the right questions. From professors to the people you go to class with, keep your eyes open for the confident, the smart, and learn from them. Which you can do because...
5. You're in control. Fuck anyone who tries to coerce you into doing dumb shit. You can drop the people you don't like. There are tons of clubs and gatherings, if you're short on people to spend time with, just join a club that does something you like to do too. If you don't wanna party, just don't. Eventually, most people get bored of partying. My drink&party phase lasted 6 months. Most students realize way too late that they can...
6. Do cool & interesting stuff when you get the chance. Not just recreational, but also in an academic way. By always following my curiosity, I ended up in Hong Kong, Berlin (next week), Canada (in a month), socializing with professors (turns out, they're human!), being invited to a really great Urbanism Club, getting good grades, and most faculty staff knows me by name (and people have been talking about me). In just the first two years. Bonus: accidentally getting a great resume.
Hope this helps some! This isn't directly answering your questions, but it'll probably help at least somewhat.