Is college really all that great?

[mbc]

Originally Posted by Handlethevibe

Everyone says their years in college were the greatest years of their lives, but I find this hard to believe, from my point of view anyways. I'm 17, I'm not a bro, I don't go to keggers, and I couldn't give two ***** about how my school's football team is doing. I like reading, watching movies, and clothes. From the looks of it, college is going to suck for me. I've bullshitted through high school, so there's no chance for me to get into a nice liberal arts school, and even if I did have the grades, my older sister is already going to one of the top 10 most expensive colleges in the nation, and I'd rather not put any more financial strain on my family. It seems like I'm destined for a state school. Is there any hope for me? How were all your college experiences fellow SFers?
The only way to find out is to not go and then let us know how much you regret it 10 years later. And yes, I would like fries with that.

 

[Get Smart]

When I was graduating from hs I didnt give a **** about the football team, didnt go to keggers, etc either...and I had a blast in college. You're bound to meet others who share the crappy interests you have and you'll have a good time being an outsider. I know I did.

 

[Faded501s]

Like most things, college is what you make of it but it's hard for me to imagine a better place for a young adult to figure things out or do nothing for a few years.

I did a little of both and my only real complaint was not having money...those late-night drunken fits of panic and confusion, the four of us standing in the White Hen across from Manchester dorm looking at a little cellophane-wrapped pack of cheese cubes through chilled foggy glass knowing, while pocket lint was getting jammed into our fingernails, that this was another night we couldn't scratch together $1.27.

But it was all good. You will never find a place with more people, your own age, congested in a single spot, with so much in common, ever again...and you will never need as many rubbers in your life either

 

[Augusto86]

And as a word of advice - engineering students are tolerable only to other engineering students...barely.

 

[Coho]

GS,

did you attend HS in SoCal?

Originally Posted by Get Smart

When I was graduating from hs I didnt give a **** about the football team, didnt go to keggers, etc either...and I had a blast in college. You're bound to meet others who share the crappy interests you have and you'll have a good time being an outsider. I know I did.

 

[Pilot]

Originally Posted by Coho

Nowadays, a B.A./B.S. bachelor degree is like a high school diploma. And if you don't have one, it's really hard to afford all the finer things in life. I think college is the time when you start to develop a sense of identify and assessment of what you want in life. For me, especially at this point, I want financial freedom (no boss), professional career, and a trophy wife. You sound quite defeatist so all I can is good luck.



quoted for truth. you figure yourself out in college. you realize that you can actually make your own decisions. and you control what you want to do the rest of your life (or just a few years and then change it up). i still got 2 more years of school left i basically hate class but i love being on my own and doing things my way

 

[whodini]

Originally Posted by Get Smart

When I was graduating from hs I didnt give a **** about the football team, didnt go to keggers, etc either...and I had a blast in college. You're bound to meet others who share the crappy interests you have and you'll have a good time being an outsider. I know I did.

Holy ****. You went to college?

 

[Matt]

Your college experience doesnt have to be Animal House. My own experience in college in both Australia and the US is best covered by Brian and Jason upthread....

Originally Posted by Brian278

A lot of the stereotypes about state schools are true, but most of them are so huge that if you don't find things that you enjoy about it and people you like to hang out with you're not looking hard enough.

Originally Posted by Get Smart

When I was graduating from hs I didnt give a **** about the football team, didnt go to keggers, etc either...and I had a blast in college. You're bound to meet others who share the crappy interests you have and you'll have a good time being an outsider. I know I did.

 

[Get Smart]

Originally Posted by Coho

GS,

did you attend HS in SoCal?

yep, in Pasadena

Originally Posted by whodini

Holy ****. You went to college?

dood I went to the South Harmon Institute of Technology

 

[Chadley]

I go to a large state school. I'm not sure what "all that great" would actually mean, but I enjoy it here. This is a great place for me for a few years.

You'll most likely find something or manything that you like; and it normally helps to look.

 

[crazyquik]

It will be the best time in your life if you play it right.

You might even enjoy it so much you become a professor so you'll never have to leave.

There really is something magical about it, and entirely too many people who do go to college waste what is available.

 

[SoCal2NYC]

S.h.i.t.

 

[Coho]

good attitude. Here's my undergraduate dorm a few years ago. I paid + $40,000 a year for this little rat hole. I basically slept between my bike and the wheels on the left. I remembered waking up with grease all over my body every morning.

The outside is quite nice though:

Living space is ****, however. So "not all that great" is hard to define. It's what you make of it really.

Originally Posted by Chadley

I go to a large state school. I'm not sure what "all that great" would actually mean, but I enjoy it here. This is a great place for me for a few years. You'll most likely find something or manything that you like; and it normally helps to look.

 

[Chadley]

Doh--especially for 40k. It does look nice from the outside. My dorm looked like a bomb shelter. Well, actually it is a bomb shelter; the sign is still nailed to the outside brick.

Thank goodness I live off-campus now. One of the few things that has bothered me at times was the dorm I lived in my first year. Not only was it much more expensive than living off-campus, but that place was crud. It was one of the worst dorms on campus and falling apart. The year after I moved out, a student died when an elevator malfunctioned in a neighboring dorm. They did have too many people on the elevator, but still, there are numbers of times the same thing could have happened in our dorm and others.

My dorm room looks like it was a little bigger than yours, although I shared it with another guy. My dorm had no AC and my room was across from the public bathroom shared by 30 guys. That meant that the cross breeze went from the bathroom, across the hallway, into my room and out my window. All together, though, I didn't mind that much because the people were great.

 

[ms244]

Originally Posted by Augusto86

And as a word of advice - engineering students are tolerable only to other engineering students...barely.

No, its because we are superior in ever way imaginable and lesser mortals are incapable of grasping that.

I thought I was going to get to build cool ****, not do a lot of math and mindless report writing.