Life As A College Student

Since there are many users here that are between the ages of 18-35 or whatever, I want to now, what is life like in college? Please, tell your story below. We would all love to hear it.
 
Um well I started 2 weeks ago and I already hate it. I'm pretty terrible at making friends and being social and most importantly talking to the opposite sex so I spend my time bored as hell. My classes are so easy cause they're just review of high school ap classes so they don't stress me out/challenge me at all. If you're antisocial college is not the place for you. It also doesn't help that I dorm at a commuter school so the dorms are completely empty on weekends except for the few who dorm so I have literally no chances to hang with people besides those who don't have 8 am classes which I do so yeah....
 
Um well I started 2 weeks ago and I already hate it. I'm pretty terrible at making friends and being social and most importantly talking to the opposite sex so I spend my time bored as hell. My classes are so easy cause they're just review of high school ap classes so they don't stress me out/challenge me at all. If you're antisocial college is not the place for you. It also doesn't help that I dorm at a commuter school so the dorms are completely empty on weekends except for the few who dorm so I have literally no chances to hang with people besides those who don't have 8 am classes which I do so yeah....
Im sorry to hear that. I hope things get better for you!
 

aVocado

@ Everstone
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
I'm pretty much on the same boat the above poster (doublenikesocks), except I started college about a month ago. So far I've skipped half my classes cuz they're literally an easier version of the classes I took in a foundation year that I finished a couple months before starting college so it's really very easy so far, and everything they teach is available online on their site anyway and one of our lecturers quite literally said in other words that we never need to attend his class if we don't want to, because all his notes even on lectures we didn't have yet are uploaded.

We're not given homework yet and the classes we're taken are very extremely basic but I'm pretty sure that's not for all universities. I'm literally the only guy who ever did physics in my class and I did that back in high school. It's not hard at all to socialize but in my case I kinda don't want to. I don't overly like any of my classmates and it's kinda just awkward. Sometimes I'll go and have a few pints with them or stick around for a while but that's it, they plan some nights out sometimes but I don't ever feel like going. It kinda sucks that I feel this way and its weird lol.

I've moved here from another country for college so i'm kinda having it rough because I was spoiled and now I'm made to do all my laundry, wash the dishes, get my own food, manage money, set up bills, get groceries, even simple stuff like waking up on my own, I usually relied on other people for all of those things and having to do all of them suddenly felt kinda shitty at first but I'm used to it now. (edit: on hindsight, probably everyone else has it the same way as well lol.)

One thing I kept hearing from other people is that people in college don't care what you like or what you do for the most part. One time in class my phone rang and I forgot to put it on silent, and my ring tone was this. It's a fan-made song/remix/whatever from a chant that goes on in Super Smash Bros., a game I spend thousands of hours on, and one of my classmates recognized it and was like "oh is that super smash bros? do you play that game? I fucking love it!" and just like that I introduced him to a bunch of guys I hang out with who play the game as well, and no one else gave a shit. Not something that would happen in high school.

Overall you're gonna have to depend on yourself for pretty much everything but other than that I keep hearing it's gonna be a good experience and honestly so far it definitely is, it's just me not feeling very sociable in college and it's starting to bother me a bit, but I don't know what to do about it. Pretty much everyone else in your class is on the same boat as you are and that makes things a loooot easier, you'll easily go along with people. The support in college is also usually very overwhelming. Fresher's week is a great way to know all about everything. Most if not all universities or colleges will have a students union, a bunch of clubs and societies, free clinics, a chapelry or whatever its called where you go to talk about religion if you want to, free therapy, special help for those who need it, all sorts of shit. If you need help you'll most likely find it. College is pretty good.
 
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aVocado

@ Everstone
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
sorry for the double post but this is a huge mistake i did in my previous post (that i edited now anyway) LOL

"I keep hearing it's gonna be a good experience and honestly so far it definitely isn't"

I meant it definitely IS not isn't
 
sorry for the double post but this is a huge mistake i did in my previous post (that i edited now anyway) LOL

"I keep hearing it's gonna be a good experience and honestly so far it definitely isn't"

I meant it definitely IS not isn't
Im glad you enhoy college. Have fun! And Best of luck to you in whatever you pursue!
 
I'm not really a social person either, but I've found my college experience to be pretty fun. The professors treat you like an adult, and the class discussions for the most part are intellectual. Probably the biggest difference from high school to college is that professors honestly don't care if you're late to class, and that you need to set up a gap in your classes for meals if you don't want to miss lecture content.

I'm looking into a club for Civil Engineering (which is something I plan to major in) to meet new people (hopefully fellow nerds that play 'mons and Smash that like math). I actually commute, which relieves me from feeling obligated to make friends and talk to people (I typically don't talk unless spoken to, but I'd like to think that I'm kinda friendly especially when a topic peaks my interest). The classes that I have met people in are Math, Gender Women Studies 110, and Art 140, none of which I feel I can talk to on a personal level. In my spare time, I've picked up sitcoms like Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory, and I keep in touch with online/IRL friends on Skype/email, respectively.

Overall, college has been really kind to me, so I can't really complain. If I had any sort of advice to give, it'd be that you should have some sort of idea about what you want to do with your future, before heading in.
 
Well I also started like a month ago so I don't have that much to say. Met some cool people around the dorms, am drinking more than ever because now it's okay to grab a couple beers on a weekday and go to class with a hangover if you have to and then skip the rest of the day. Being able to just not go to some classes is also just super convenient. Basically, it rules.
 
bruh, why
Do not fret, the man has someone to promote him to critically think about issues, and he's smart enough to do it himself. He doesn't have to worry about getting rallied over non-issues, so it's worth for him to see basically naked women. :]
 
College is... difficult to get a grasp on at first but once youget a feel of how things work you can get a good pace going as far as time management, hmwrk, studying, etc, are concerned. I'm in my 2nd year of college at UIC (Computer Science major) as a commuter and I've enjoyed it despite literally making zero new friends.

I don't talk to anyone unless spoken too, and I only ever talk to my old friends from high school that I'm close to or enjoy chillin' with. I went into college expecting everyone to have amazing work ethic, be smart as hell and stuff, only to find out that's not really the case. Other people will go through the same struggles you will, like not being prepared for an exam or being late to class or forgetting an assignment was due.

Idk but college is pretty cool. People are nice. Printers suck. Professors know that shit happens and are lenient sometimes. Don't be afraid to ask for help or questions, most importantly. Classmates always help out. Shoutout to the girl who gives me all the answers to the Bio labs.
 
First 2.5 years were fun and then I started full-time work and full-time school. Only 1.5 more semesters to go.

I'm finishing every graduation requirement for a BSIT this semester though so I'm looking forward to bullshit classes like psych 101 my final semester.
 

Ohmachi

Sun✡Head
college is great! You should get A's while there easy. You can go to a university your first two years if you want to experience living your own for the first time, however going to a two year community college first will save you a ton of money. All the classes your first two years are the same no matter where you go or what you major in. You only want to go to the big name universities once you know for certain what you wanna do. If you chose to ignore that advice have fun going into debt.

 

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
I'm a sophomore right now. I really enjoy the Independence, but I'm just not digging school. This semester, I was particularly unmotivated (am doing terribly with an objectively easy schedule). I do really care about my TA job, though, so at least I can identify the issue as school-related. I'm hoping that next sem will be much better (way harder, but with things that I want to do: an impossible webdev course, a programming studio course, calc 3 (ugh), and some bs-ish gen eds that will actually be really fun and refreshing. I really enjoy teaching as well, so that is another break (it is fun to be on the other end of the petty competitio).

Hard semester or not, it is a very cut-throat school, so it will be nice to get away from the core intro requirements and pursue some things that I'm actually excited for (delving into the gen-eds will absolutely be a break from the ultra-competitive students of the cs department). I didn't particularly like the idea of being at a huge school (campus is literally ~3 miles diagonally. Was a thirty five minute walk from my dorm last year to some of my classes). Population is 40k-something. In reality, it is the same feeling as a small school except there are far more opportunities. Plus, if you really want to, you can easily meet with professors and effectively emulate the personal feel of a smaller school.

The actual living part is super nice, actually. I love having an apartment and responsibility. You mature very quickly once you leave the dorms, imo.

All in all, I think it is important to choose your school carefully. The academic side of things is important, but also the type of living. Definitely visit schools to get a feel for them. Where you end up will really shape your personal development. You will honestly be find wherever you go, though, so don't fret even if things seem to be going poorly during admissions :)

P.S. I low-key disgree with the community college route for most people. Depending on your major, the first two years will absolutely be vastly different academically. I would argue that it would be near impossible to finish most engineering curriculums in 2 years after transferring from a cc to a much more prestigious school. It is definitely reasonable for most liberal arts degrees, but for engineering majors, you are missing two years of high-quality education, internship opportunities, and career opportunities. you also face the opportunity cost of missing out on those two years of social development. Even if you attend a cheaper school elsewhere (including good community colleges that are close to larger schools) with the intention of transferring to a better school later, I would highly recommend getting away from home if the option is available.

Also, screw classes with required attendance. Another perk of a big school is a higher likelihood of being able to have accountability for yourself and go to class whenever you think you need it. Especially for larger math and physics and etc. classes, most of the learning will honestly be by yourself via the homework+the internet.
 
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How do you get a Harvard graduate off your porch?
Pay him for the pizza.

Anyway let me tell everything about college. There is a game room. And people don't really get any less annoying.
 
Oh my, college is "fun," let me tell you.

Okay, story time. I lived the first eighteen years of my life as a spoiled brat that always got what he wanted from his parents. So naturally when I had to leave the protection of my parents to attend my first semester of college, I had no idea what to do. I couldn't buy my own food. I couldn't talk to people. I honestly couldn't do anything. Well, except get good grades somehow. First semester classes were disappointingly easy. And yeah, my parents did visit me at the end of every week, and I got to see my grandparents about once a week too, which was great because I rarely got to see them beforehand. Regardless, I was stressed and felt awful for about the entire semester, and when it was over, I was not feeling good at all. Did I mention that very little budget went into maintaining the freshman housing? No? Well now you know.

So after the winter break it was time for the second semester. Luckily, due to my first semester crash course in not starving to death, I handled living in a dorm a little better. Sure, I still didn't know how to buy anything, and I still couldn't talk to people, but at least the act of not living at home wasn't giving me constant panic attacks. So at first things were looking good. Then I got hit with Foundations of Higher Mathematics.

A quick disclaimer: I'm currently a Computer Science/Applied Mathematics Double Major. Your mileage will--not can--vary. I know a lot of people who adore being at college or uni, and appreciate the extra freedom and whatnot that comes with it. I understand that. If you're not taking Math or CS, you probably won't even deal with Foundations of Higher Mathematics at all, and even if you do, I can't guarantee you'll have my experience. Alright, disclaimer over. Let the rant begin.

Fountations of Higher Mathematics is essentially a logic course, where they teach you how to do proofs. Some of the example proofs given are incredibly useful for later math courses. Thing is, this class requires you to change your mindset. In previous math courses, you had to remember formulas and apply them. Here you have to figure out the logical steps to get from point A to point B flawlessly. I was not ready for this, and combined with the entire class being a single semester and me still not being used to college life...second semester was easily one of the worst times of my life. I'm convinced that, even if this were the only class I had to deal with that semester, it wouldn't have been any better. At least I finally learned how to buy food at a restaurant. But the fact that it took me until then to learn that is honestly kinda pathetic.

So then came summer break, followed by third semester. I was hoping this semester would have been better. I was wrong.

Last time it was Math that screwed me over, this time it was Computer Science. The idea with this course was that you were given a pre-existing codebase, and your job was to add new functionality to the codebase, in little steps assigned as projects that teach you more things about coding. This may sound daunting to the non-programmers, but as a CS Major I didn't expect this to be too difficult. I mean, I've already done programming. How could this be anything but more programming? Haha no. The due dates were incredibly strict, and the projects were much larger than I first expected them to be. There were other problems going on as well, which I don't feel confident I could explain in a way that's actually correct. Programming is not easy, I already knew that. But man did that class really open my eyes. I definitely believe I became a better programmer in the end, but the stress was honestly not worth it at all. Combined with the new living situation, this semester was easily around as bad as the previous one.

I'm currently on winter break. Here's hoping the fourth semester is slightly less traumatizing. One of my classes is Art! ...except apparently the teacher is pretentious, and not the person I initially signed up for, so this might end up being my next traumatizing class. I also still don't know how to talk to people. Grab some popcorn, this could be very entertaining for an outside observer.

Your college experience might end up being completely different, though, if the large disparity between the answers you got is any indication. Could be amazing, could be awful. You won't know until it happens.
 
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Oh my, college is "fun," let me tell you.

Okay, story time. I lived the first eighteen years of my life as a spoiled brat that always got what he wanted from his parents. So naturally when I had to leave the protection of my parents to attend my first semester of college, I had no idea what to do. I couldn't buy my own food. I couldn't talk to people. I honestly couldn't do anything. Well, except get good grades somehow. First semester classes were disappointingly easy. And yeah, my parents did visit me at the end of every week, and I got to see my grandparents about once a week too, which was great because I rarely got to see them beforehand. Regardless, I was stressed and felt awful for about the entire semester, and when it was over, I was not feeling good at all. Did I mention that very little budget went into maintaining the freshman housing? No? Well now you know.

So after the winter break it was time for the second semester. Luckily, due to my first semester crash course in not starving to death, I handled living in a dorm a little better. Sure, I still didn't know how to buy anything, and I still couldn't talk to people, but at least the act of not living at home wasn't giving me constant panic attacks. So at first things were looking good. Then I got hit with Foundations of Higher Mathematics.

A quick disclaimer: I'm currently a Computer Science/Applied Mathematics Double Major. Your mileage will--not can--vary. I know a lot of people who adore being at college or uni, and appreciate the extra freedom and whatnot that comes with it. I understand that. If you're not taking Math or CS, you probably won't even deal with Foundations of Higher Mathematics at all, and even if you do, I can't guarantee you'll have my experience. Alright, disclaimer over. Let the rant begin.

Fountations of Higher Mathematics is essentially a logic course, where they teach you how to do proofs. Some of the example proofs given are incredibly useful for later math courses. Thing is, this class requires you to change your mindset. In previous math courses, you had to remember formulas and apply them. Here you have to figure out the logical steps to get from point A to point B flawlessly. I was not ready for this, and combined with the entire class being a single semester and me still not being used to college life...second semester was easily one of the worst times of my life. I'm convinced that, even if this were the only class I had to deal with that semester, it wouldn't have been any better. At least I finally learned how to buy food at a restaurant. But the fact that it took me until then to learn that is honestly kinda pathetic.

So then came summer break, followed by third semester. I was hoping this semester would have been better. I was wrong.

Last time it was Math that screwed me over, this time it was Computer Science. The idea with this course was that you were given a pre-existing codebase, and your job was to add new functionality to the codebase, in little steps assigned as projects that teach you more things about coding. This may sound daunting to the non-programmers, but as a CS Major I didn't expect this to be too difficult. I mean, I've already done programming. How could this be anything but more programming? Haha no. The due dates were incredibly strict, and the projects were much larger than I first expected them to be. There were other problems going on as well, which I don't feel confident I could explain in a way that's actually correct. Programming is not easy, I already knew that. But man did that class really open my eyes. I definitely believe I became a better programmer in the end, but the stress was honestly not worth it at all. Combined with the new living situation, this semester was easily around as bad as the previous one.

I'm currently on winter break. Here's hoping the fourth semester is slightly less traumatizing. One of my classes is Art! ...except apparently the teacher is pretentious, and not the person I initially signed up for, so this might end up being my next traumatizing class. I also still don't know how to talk to people. Grab some popcorn, this could be very entertaining for an outside observer.

Your college experience might end up being completely different, though, if the large disparity between the answers you got is any indication. Could be amazing, could be awful. You won't know until it happens.
Damn, well good luck with that
 

Soul Fly

IMMA TEACH YOU WHAT SPLASHIN' MEANS
is a Contributor Alumnus
Last semester of college. Summing up last 5 semesters: Drank a lot, got high a lot, and fooled around with people I'll probably cringe 10 years from now. Doesn't mean I didn't study, and to the contrary did rather well, but I realized college is a place where you probably need to learn who you are and what you want from life rather than treating it like a one-way upgrade to a white-collar job. Sounds cliched but it's also true. College was nothing like I expected. Have your priorities sorted (that's still important, no one wants the next hippie movement) and keep an open mind and you'll literally observe yourself changing in ways you couldn't even imagine.
 
College, like many things in life, is what you make of it. Some people will hate it, some people will love it, some people will say it's somewhere in the middle. For one thing, the college workload is pretty big, so if you plan on getting a degree, you won't be able to just do nothing. But it's also a really great way to start envisioning yourself less as a teenager dependent on parents and more of a self-sustaining adult. My mindset for college was treating school as job prep (meeting deadlines, doing things in an efficient manner) and as a way to find friends in a similar way I might find companionship after college. Sorta like prep for being completely independent. I think, by viewing it like that, I have been able to find life after college less scary, because I am in that transition state already. I already have skills to live and I'll learn as I go.

If there is one "cliche" that I never really enjoyed was the idea that college was different from "real world". For one, I was never fond of that phrase. Every part of your life, from babyhood to your elderly years is just as real as everything in between including the places you are. And I think considering college something that is separate from the world of working adult, while different, trivializes the experiences you have in college. It treat college more as this time that will never be important or real which never sat with me well. So, I consider college to be part of the real world, jsut like every part of life is part of the real world.

There's really not much else for me to talk about. I don't talk about college as a horrible thing or as a wonderful thing, because everything's more complex than that.
 
Hi - I was visiting UMD a few days ago for admitted students day (I might end up there, we'll see) and I think I saw a smogoner. I saw some guy in a Bronx Beartics shirt in the stamp student union on Friday morning - midday. Didn't talk to him or acknowledge him because I was with my mom and I'm awkward as hell, but idk, I am acknowledging him here.
 
Hi - I was visiting UMD a few days ago for admitted students day (I might end up there, we'll see) and I think I saw a smogoner. I saw some guy in a Bronx Beartics shirt in the stamp student union on Friday morning - midday. Didn't talk to him or acknowledge him because I was with my mom and I'm awkward as hell, but idk, I am acknowledging him here.
Lucky.


I don't think anyone plays competitive Pokémon at my school... I hope you guys eventually get to meet. In my experience in high school and college, meeting someone that plays mons is kind of like seeing a unicorn.
 
So I am a second semester senior preparing to go to byu. At this point I am really having hard time finding motivation to do any of my homework tbh.
But onto college, I am both excited and pretty nervous for college. On one hand I really want to move to a place where my parents aren't constantly breathing down my neck telling me that I am addicted to video games(I have a healthy social life and don't game on weekdays) and asking me what my grades constantly (my grades are fine thank you very much). And I am excited to find something I am actually excited to do. Still haven't found it yet though. And I am looking foreward to living in a different place for the first time in my life (or for as long as I remember).
I am pretty nervous because I am going to have 0 friends, and I will have to make completely new friends which is kinda scary. Also I have gone on like 2 dates in my life so I am going to have to learn how to date from the ground up.
As for things that could go either way I feel like I am going to get a really good roommate or the super Mormon who condones my video game playing as devil worship and reports me to the administration.
But those are just my thoughts, I think I will have a good time despite being nervous for a lot of things. I am pretty flexible so I think I will be fine.
 

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