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Dear TL,
Hi, my name is Sean Kim. I am 17 years old and gearing to go to college. I have been accepted to Case Western Reserve Univeristy via Early Decision. My GPA was subpar (3.55 weighted) and my SAT's somewhat decent. (1920 combined) I consider myself a very 'lazy' student. I pride myself on being able to pay attention in class and being able to retain information quite well.
With the stress of college applications gone, I found myself worrying about the quicly approaching future. 'What will college be like?'I have visited many college campuses but only during the summer breaks. I feel like i have no clue what the college enviroment will be like.
If possible could anyone describe what the experiance is like?
Or if that is too general, what should i look forward to and what should i fear?
I find American Pie movies a poor indicator of what i should be expecting 
-Love , Sean
P.S anyone from Case here? O__O
 
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CA10835 Posts
the college experience is different for every person. there are too many variables, including your own personality type, the campus culture, who you make friends with, the location of your school, etc
what i can almost guarantee though, is that it will be more fun in high school. you'll probably have more "free" time, although you should probably be studying or doing something productive during those hours. you'll also have a lot more responsibilities, but you won't have anyone looking after you like your parents or teachers.
anyway, make sure you study hard but don't forget to have fun at least a couple times a month. go out and do stuff.
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I was about to give you college advice.
Then I realize I go to a community college.
So I'll just wish you best of luck, and the only thing to fear is fear itself!
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I dunno, your life could be like American Pie if you so chose, but you'll probably do way more studying than they portray in movies ^^
It's not like high school, professors all have their own classes and don't really give a shit about what other professors assign, so you better learn how to manage your time well. Since you'll be a freshman, I recommend that you go to all your classes. After a semester or so, you'll find out that you don't have to go to class to do well in some classes, but it helps. Pick easy courses, core courses or introductory classes to get the best feeling of college without being overwhelmed. I took a bunch of difficult classes and I didn't do as well as I could have. Learn how to study for finals. Make friends with older students and get advice.
There's nothing wrong with community college. Rankings are overrated.
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Canada5565 Posts
I don't know anything about college in South Korea, unfortunately. Just keep your grades up and think a lot about what you want to do after your undergraduate.
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LOL
Case Western Reserve University is in America -_-
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Academics are really nothing to be worried about, you'll get used to things. I had a tougher time with social stuff but I've always been that way, so if you're looking forward to meeting people then you'll do fine there. The standard advice ("go to class") is really mostly common sense, there are no great secrets we can let you in on ahead of time imo.
The thing I did that I am happiest about in retrospect was taking an intro level class in a variety of subjects. I took like 90% math and science but I took one course in history, one in sociology, one in linguistics, one in english, you get the idea. Intro courses like those are usually easy and it's incredibly interesting and useful to learn the basics of a variety of subjects. You might even stumble over a pot of gold and discover a new interest, like I did with linguistics 101. I never did take any more linguistics but I love reading about it and I've started dabbling in learning Japanese.
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Considering its high admission rate, I don't think it's a competitive university. Therefore you can probably enjoy enough clowns in the classes to drag down the average of every course.
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CA10835 Posts
oh, and if you end up being hard science or engineering major, don't make too many friends with business or humanities majors. you'll just end up being bitter when you find out that they can party 3 or 4 nights a week and you're stuck in the library studying to end up with a lower gpa than them 
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On January 10 2010 03:31 LosingID8 wrote:oh, and if you end up being hard science or engineering major, don't make too many friends with business or humanities majors. you'll just end up being bitter when you find out that they can party 3 or 4 nights a week and you're stuck in the library studying to end up with a lower gpa than them
So much truth in this post.
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United States2822 Posts
Freshman 15 is most certainly not truth :p
Well I can't gain weight if my life depended on it so I'm not a good judge for that.
Make sure you develop time management skills early on otherwise it will bite you in the ass as you get farther in your college career :p
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On January 10 2010 03:31 LosingID8 wrote:oh, and if you end up being hard science or engineering major, don't make too many friends with business or humanities majors. you'll just end up being bitter when you find out that they can party 3 or 4 nights a week and you're stuck in the library studying to end up with a lower gpa than them
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Make a lot of aquaintances early on. Don't stick with a small group of people.
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Personally, jumping into college was nothing big, life goes on. The classes are pretty much the same as AP classes that I took in high school, except a bit easier in some than others.
Don't fret, just take it in stride.
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hi sean
congrats on your acceptance, feels good to be done doesnt it?
so as a college freshman here... im not sure if somebody else can answer these questions for you.... descriptions are limited, as your perspective will probably not match mine, and plus you and the people on this forum probably have different tastes and preferences..... not to mention location/size/general vibe of the school will highly vary.
with that said, here's how semester 1 was for me at uc berkeley: you meet a lot of people. i feel that in college, it is not like high school where you consistently see the same people over and over in a limited pool of a couple thousand people.... i say i knew about 1/8 of the people at my high school of 2800, so familiar faces would be everywhere i was. Yet at berkeley, the playing field gets MUCH bigger.... consequently, you meet more people... yet i feel this is a quantity over quality sort of deal, cuz meeting more people means you spend less time with a given set. so its definitely harder to make close friends. you should take advantage of orientation in order to meet and get cool with a lot of people. and also use the first couple weeks to your advantage to meet people, when its not weird to just introduce yourself to people because everybody is new to the school at that stage. go to many clubs to meet more people.... it is hard to stay active in many clubs (im only active in one or two), but at least meet people in the first week, and you will probably see a few of these people around or bump into them.
on a different note, its just different being by yourself. some people love it, some people dont like it. personally, im kind of in the middle... home is certainly more comfortable as you have your own room, own bathroom, more space, etc. but at school, you get to do whatever you want to without your parents breathing down your neck (again, varies by situation lol). its defintely super easy to spend money and super easy to eat bad food on a regular basis, and super easy to not clean shit and be super messy.
i didnt party much in high school, but in college, it is inevitable that you'll go out at least a few times.... normally a lot more lol. if youre the party type of person, develop your connections during the first couple weeks of school when you go out to frat parties... if you are interested in "rushing" or joining a frat, the frats have what is known as the "rush" period (usu first week or two of semester or year). so during this period, go out to a lot of frats, and talk to some brothers to get cool with them.... even if you dont end up trying to join one or fail to get a bid, just the fact you know some faces in the house means its that much easier to get into parties later on in the year when the parties are a bit less welcoming of random people nobody at the house knows. if you want to get into parties, just be sure you have a few girls in your group and you dont bring a weinerfest in... that makes it harder (no pun intended ^^) to get in but not always impossible... definitely helps to know someone in the frat if you want to get in by yourself or without girls in your group.
as for academics....this will depend by school and major. berkeley is not an easy coasting school... it wasnt as bad as i heard from rumors, but it was definitely harder than high school. some schools its gonna be ridiculously easy if youre used to AP's and shit... but as you said you didnt really work hard in high school, you may or may not have to change this habit depending on how rigorous your school in general and your major is.... at berkeley, its kind of a given that you study, regardless of if youre the nerdy kid or the party animal, or else youll do poorly.
theres just too much to put into an online post that one could talk about regarding college... even though ive only had 1 semester. i gave some general thoughts... so i hope it helps
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In college you gotta be sure to have your Boats N Hoes.
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17082 Posts
I actually ended up losing weight in my first year of college, so yeah. It can be done.
Umm...not much to say. You have a lot more free time. There are a lot more parties and such, especially on the weekends and during orientation week, so be aware of that.
Unfortunately, I think Case is in the troll-tier of college girls (other schools in this tier include CMU and Purdue). That could be good or bad, depending. For example, there probably aren't many attractive people, but on the plus side, you won't be as distracted from your studies.
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On January 10 2010 03:51 Empyrean wrote:
I actually ended up losing weight in my first year of college, so yeah. It can be done.
Umm...not much to say. You have a lot more free time. There are a lot more parties and such, especially on the weekends and during orientation week, so be aware of that.
Unfortunately, I think Case is in the troll-tier of college girls (other schools in this tier include CMU and Purdue). That could be good or bad, depending. For example, there probably aren't many attractive people, but on the plus side, you won't be as distracted from your studies.
....fuck
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There's no rule that says you can't date someone from outside your school.
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EPT
I think the hardest part for me was managing my time to balance everything out but you should get a feel for that as well as the semester progresses. I'm not sure what the people at case will be like but just remember everyone is in your shoes as well.. Try to meet as many people as you can early on too cause its definitely easier then haha. 
