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1. Pretty much
2. Had to resist a lot more temptations but still went to class, still did hw, still did well
3. freedom to do whatever you want
4. infinitely more time
5. Undergraduate research opportunities, not over-drinking, getting good grades
6. Not much, just make sure you finish all of your core curriculum classes so you can graduate on time
7. I loved it
8. Ph.D. candidate in chemical engineering
9. If you can't excel at 30 different things, choose 1 or 2 and really put your heart into it, if you can write good essays / get good recommendations from 1 or 2 really strong activities that's better
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5003 Posts
I rather not give my first name since it's pretty identifiable. But I currently attend the University of Chicago.
1) No. I sort of have mixed feelings about it. To a certain extent, I expected the material to be more rigorous and thorough, and I was honestly surprised by a lot of the coursework that is offered. But on the other hand, the difficult courses are fairly difficult, which is somewhat what I had expected. But even then, there's nothing like college to tell you that you actually don't know anything. All in all, depends on your major, and what kind of courses you take -- you can take the hardest classes or the easiest classes to adjust your experience as you "expect" it to be.
2) My transition was rough. I never touched a book in High School so I didn't know how to manage time and spent a lot of my time slacking of doing other things. I don't think I learned anything useful from highschool to help me for college, save Calculus.
3) At least in the courses I took, there's no more spoonfeeding. Professors will have no qualms about just throwing you into the swimming pool to teach you how to swim. They'll lecture about one thing and the problem sets will be about something completely different you haven't learned.
4) I definitely had more, but I'm also a big slacker and I take it easy when it comes to school work.
5) The number one thing you should look out for is variety. It's a great way to expose yourself to various different things. So, I would say career exploration. The second thing is that you have opportunities to help research with a lot of professors, so I would definitely look out for opportunities like that. Last thing, I used to not care about grades at all, justifying myself as "as long as I know it better than everyone else who cares about the grade", but honestly that came back to bite me in the ass when getting a summer job this summer (although it all worked out in the end, but not through my grades but through connections). So, concentrate on getting good grades, learn how to game the system. But don't forget to learn.
6) Not much. As long as you're qualified, dedicated, and send the right signals, it shouldn't matter.
7) I love college.
8) Economics, thinking about picking up a double in Statistics.
9) Learn how to manage your time. That will singlehandedly make your college life many many times easier and I honestly learned that the hard way through a rather difficult course I took my first year. Just force yourself to study even if you don't want to, learn how to just concentrate on what you're currently doing and not anything else. Once you master those skills you should be fine in no matter what you do in college.
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1. The way everyone was talking about how the jump from HS to University is insane, I found it way easier than expected, but the hard part was doing all this boring bullshit courses that I didn't wanna do.
2. Study-wise, it was OK. You need to be better at dealing with distractions, or dealing with loud floormates, but if you can do that, or atleast find a quiet place to study and get into the habit of doing it often, you'll be fine. Lifestyle wise, you have more freedom to do whatever you wanna do, and you have more oppurtunities to meet a lot of different people
3. You'll see a lot of people doing stupid things, partly due to alcohol, partly due to kids living away from their parents for the first time and not knowing how to do anything
4. I'm not sure, I found myself spending more time doing leisurely activities, even though I'm spending more time studying. Makes no sense, but I was fine time-wise
5. It's easy to look at some of your friends and get sucked into the "Well, they're getting shitty marks, it's OK if I'm not doing well, Uni is hard!" or look at other people's lifestyles and start slacking. Don't do it. Don't slack off. You may regret slacking off and getting shitty marks, but you're not going to regret earning that shiny A
6. I didn't even think about this, though I guess my major is pretty good in that regard
7. Yeah
8. Mechanical Engineering
9. Study hard, have fun, look for people with similar interests, maybe join some clubs that look interesting
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1. Was college what you expected it to be like?
2. How was the transition from High School--> College?
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life?
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University?
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college?
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities?
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college?
8. What are you majoring/minoring in?
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career?
I'm an economics major for reference.
1. Yes, but I expected it to be harder.
2. No transition really, I didn't have to move, so I pretty much kept all my old friends and made new ones at college.
3. Smarter people around you, people who you can talk to about the major and they will understand what you're talking about.
4. About the same really, work is harder, but there's less of it, so it balances out.
5.
Decide on your path in life. Once you get your major and get a job, it's not as easy to just go back to uni and change career paths from lets say art to computer science.
Don't slack off entirely, but don't overdo it either. Find the perfect balance between work and leisure.
Make friends and try new things, find a longterm hobby.
6. Dunno, don't really feel like going into post-grad. I'm guessing not that much.
7.Not at first, but as courses became more challenging and focused on my major, I started liking it a lot more.
8. econ
9. HS is not a career bro. Also college is what you make of it. You don't need to go to harvard or MIT to get a good education.
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On June 02 2010 11:48 vlaric wrote:
Hello TLers! I'm a Junior in High School in the United States right now, and one of my teachers has decided to incorporate an interview with a current college student or an alumni who has graduated in the last four years. This is completely voluntary, and I only need one interview. Any help would be appreciated. My questions are pretty trite, so it should be an easy 'interview' overall. Feel free to PM your answers or respond in the thread.
If you plan on participating, I would appreciate your first name and the university you are currently attending/attended.
1. Was college what you expected it to be like?
2. How was the transition from High School--> College?
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life?
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University?
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college?
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities?
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college?
8. What are you majoring/minoring in?
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career?
To all future responders, thank you for your time in answering these questions.
Queen's University Electrical Engineering
1. It's awesome
2. Really easy for me fitting in seemed instantly.
3. Freedom and you no longer care how profs think of you and your grades. You won't care about your grades because if you get a 50 on something it can feel like getting perfect. Your average will drop around 15-20%
4. You will have a lot of time to do leisure activities if you mangage your time. It's all about time management.
5. I would look at which faculty you are interested in the most and their alumnus. Also their history.
6. That I'm not sure as I'm only in second year
7. Fuck yes i'm enjoying it
8. EE major
9. At college: Just chill the fuck out and be your self and you will meet tons of people and many of your friends in college will stay with you for the rest of your life.
At HS career: Work diligent and do not slack
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1. For the most part. It's more difficult than high school and there's certainly less homework and absolutely no babysitting by professors.
2. It was pretty easy because I always did what I was supposed to do in high school. If you just go to classes success is pretty easy.
3. In college you have to do a lot on your own. You have to study without any incentives but getting a higher grade because no one's there to make you do anything, even go to class.
4. Being social in college is one of the funnest things possible, and depending on the workload you take you can have a very nice social life.
5. In college you should study not alone but with friends, you should definitely go to class, and you should get good grades so you can hopefully land an internship that will help you get a good job.
6. It depends on what you major in. For example, if you get a bachelor's in something like fitness management don't expect to be accepted into a graduate program in physics unless you at least have a minor in it. If you want to go to grad school, make your undergrad something related to it.
7. College is the freaking best.
8. Double major pure math/theoretical physics
9. Get scholarships because loans suck. That is all.
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Osaka27105 Posts
On June 02 2010 11:48 vlaric wrote:
1. Was college what you expected it to be like?
2. How was the transition from High School--> College?
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life?
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University?
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college?
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities?
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college?
8. What are you majoring/minoring in?
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career?
Realize that for these answers, I started college ten years ago, and have not been in a "typical" college setting since 2005.
Trevor
University of Victoria / Temple University
1. Yes, I think my college was what I expected it to be. Some things that surprised me was the commercialization on campus (on the first day I got a free tshirt and a CD from credit card companies preying on first year students). In terms of classes though, it was what I imagined.
2. I spent three years after high school working. What I found was that high school did very little to prepare me for practical college skills. I wish there had been a "college skills" course that could have given me insight into how college classes function / things to know.
3. College life is completely up to you. Make what you will of it.
4. More. Way more. I grew up in a rural town that featured a 90 minute bus ride home. At university I had hours and hours of free time during the day, despite the fact that I also worked.
5. If your goal is to do well, then I would suggest:
A) Go to academic advising and plan out your entire program. You don't have to fill in your electives, but get your core courses planned out in a logical fashion, understand your graduation requirements, and make a plan. It will save you headaches (and possible an extra semester or year) if you do it right.
B) Treating professor office hours as an extra class. The vast majority of my professors had no visitors, so that time could basically be free 1 on 1 tutoring with the person that decides your grades.
C) It wasn't until my fourth year that I really understood the process of doing course work and writing papers. There is a system you can follow that allows you to produce good work quickly, and takes away the agony of sitting at your desk and saying "what do I say next".
If you don't have anything to type, it means you haven't read enough.
6. My graduate program basically looked at my grades from the past two years, as well as a standardized test score and references. However, they are not in the market of declining students as it is a very small and specialized campus, so it was easy to get in IMO. My undergrad was a BA in history and my Masters was in educational science.
7. Best time of my life. I might still go back again. Each time I have finished I have said "thank god that is over". And each time I have gone back for more. If I won the lottery, I would just study all the time.
8. See #6.
9. See #5 about college. In terms of high school, I suggest examining what you like to do, but also what is viable for your future. I like history a lot and it was interesting, but your career prospects are not outstanding unless you want to teach history. Basically, be a doctor.
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Rui, Stanford University
1. Was college what you expected it to be like? Honestly I didn't know what to expect for college, but so far Stanford has exceeded everything I have hoped for. It's wonderful here.
2. How was the transition from High School--> College? Not bad at all. The close friends I formed in my dorms made it very positive and smooth. Only thing that's a little bothersome is I sometimes lack motivation to work.
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life? I would definitely say: Independence. You are free from your parents and you can make so many choices on your own. You don't have to go to class.. nobody would care if you decide to sleep at 5 everyday (after watching some SC:BW of course ;-) )
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University? Actually more time, but this really varies on individual basis.
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college? Overdrinking, relationships, networking (do not combine the three)
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities? Thinking about business school, which means any sort of techie BS degree will be fine
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college? Tremendously. Wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
8. What are you majoring/minoring in? Mathematical and Computational Sciences
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career? Choose your friends wisely. They really influence you and change you in imperceptible ways.
To all future responders, thank you for your time in answering these questions. No problem!
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On June 02 2010 11:48 vlaric wrote:
1. Was college what you expected it to be like?
2. How was the transition from High School--> College?
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life?
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University?
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college?
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities?
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college?
8. What are you majoring/minoring in?
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career?
Anthony
UC Berkeley // Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
1. Nope. More things than you can imagine to spend time on/get distracted with/experience, but there's only time to do 1-2 of them.
2. Pretty rough academically. Very fun socially  . Live in the dorms ur first year.
3. In High School, you have many people pushing you to do well. In College, you have to push yourself - especially in the general courses because classes are so big and its tougher to meet and make study groups.
4. More and less time, but that's because of the way I manage my time. I tend to have a long period of leisure, followed by a longass period of just academics.
5. Don't ruin your GPA doing stupid shit (keep 3.5+ please). Have an open mind, but always ask questions. Meet new people and keep those connections!
6. I think a lot. Good post-graduate degree opportunities a lot of the time are based on the research you've done as an undergraduate.
7. I enjoyed college (too much).
8. EECS
9. See #5.
Good luck
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1. Was college what you expected it to be like?
A little.
2. How was the transition from High School--> College?
It was quite easy.
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life?
A lot more studying, at least for me. More independence.
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University?
Less time, probably. Although, you have more freedom in your studying, which to me is pretty much leisure time.
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college?
Never give yourself more than you can handle. I took 3 classes my first semester, thought it was way too easy. I took 5 the next semester. I had to stop going to one of them because the work load was just too much for me. I took an F while I tried to salvage my marks in all my other classes. Not a great position to be in at all.
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities?
I've heard they really don't matter. I've heard of people going into jobs completely unrelated to what they studied in college. If you go for graduate school then I expect it to be different, more oriented to your major.
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college?
Yes. I enjoy the short class time a lot more and the degree of study freedom.
8. What are you majoring/minoring in?
My first year of college has been full of twists and turns. I never did science in high school so I was expecting to just go into economics and political science and, hopefully, to law school. As I was taking classes related to economics, math and econ classes, I found I enjoyed the mathematics much more and took to reading books about physics and math. I am now, probably, switching into a math major, but I'm taking the summer to seriously consider it because it is a long, arduous path in mathematics. I had some talks with the math professors and they told me to really be sure before you put yourself into it.
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career?
Be open to new experiences and never have concrete plans going into college. Take a wide variety of classes your first term, and even your second term, unless you are short on cash or don't want to rake up too much debt. In my own experience, you will only find happiness and satisfaction doing what you truly want to do, which is why college has been such a great experience for me (more freedom of choice). Do what you love to do, study what you want to study, follow your passion. You will not find that passion in material things or money, so don't go into a program that boasts the highest average salary just because you want to make a lot of money *cough business majors cough*.
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Ho Joon/ Santa Clara University
1. no, not at all actually but I am first generation so I had odd expectations
2. a lot easier than you think if you have good time management skills
3. much more free time, you do what you want when you want
4. a lot more time for yourself
5. Similar groups of people, the right classes, the right professors
6. for engineering, or at least my school, a lot
7. enjoyed the whole year so far, first quarter because of getting to know people/the parties second and third more because I found closer friends and academic success
8. Mechanical Engineering
9. Be optimistic, do what you want to a certain extent/limit
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Thanks for all of your responses. I finished the questionnaire section of the project thanks to all of you guys. Additionally, I appreciate all of the time that everyone here has taken to share their knowledge on college - I've read a lot of (what I think is) important stuff after reading through all of this.
Once again, thank you TLers for helping me finish this project and taking your time to share your knowledge.
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Indiana University
1. Was college what you expected it to be like?
Yes. The one thing that really took me by surprise though was the freedom and independence. This was both good and bad. Good because suddenly, you could skip classes, do no homework, hang out with friends and party literally all night and go 30+ hours without sleep. Bad because of the exact same reasons lol.
2. How was the transition from High School--> College?
The transition was pretty smooth. Especially during freshman year, everyone feels new and alone in such a large new setting so people were much more friendly and open than I thought.
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life?
See question one. The parents factor is the biggest change. In college, professors, AI's, advisers, all really don't care at all about you in the end. I mean they care, but nowhere near like your parents do. If you fuck up, they will not be looking out for you. You learn to take care of your own business and keep yourself on track. (deadlines, applying for everything, grades..)
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University?
I personally feel like I have SO much more time. In college, because you get to pick your classes and major, you generally end up taking a very specialized set of courses. The courses are much harder but because you don't need to apply yourself to such a wider range of subjects, I find it takes less time overall.
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college?
Drinking, Procrastinating, and Relationship. All three of those have the potential to completely fuck you over
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities?
As a music major, I feel like I'm not really qualified to answer this. Because music majors are only required to take music courses, I don't really have a choice but to go into music lol
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college?
College is awesome.
8. What are you majoring/minoring in?
Violin performance
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career?
Enjoy yourself. Work hard but work harder to have fun. Don't stress!
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1. Was college what you expected it to be like? No. That's a good thing
2. How was the transition from High School--> College? kinda rough, my laziness and procrastination from HS are still with me, which is the reason why I'm writing this instead of working on my 5-page paper 
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life? courses are way harder + faster-paced, people are generally more mature, diverse groups of people, and you have more freedom over pretty much all aspects of your life
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University?definitely more time, like i said before: you have way more freedom
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college?1. grades. don't let anything distract you from the importance of these. 2. getting as much experience as you can (this means internships, research, jobs, volunteer..), start mid to end of the freshmen year if you can 3. this is probably way more important than the other two: meet new people
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities? this question is kinda broad lol. I guess my answer is a lot? What are you planning to study?
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college? didn't enjoy it my first year, but I'm beginning to enjoy it more now that I somewhat have the right mentality
8. What are you majoring/minoring in? major in computer science, minor in korean
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career? how your college experience turns out is completely up to you. don't feel obligated to study/live like anyone else, just do whatever you want.
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My name is Wyatt and I am working on a Mechanical engineering MS/BS degree at the University of Utah. This fall I will be starting my 4th year.
1. Was college what you expected it to be like?
Pretty much yes, except for some very unexpected free-time especially my first year.
2. How was the transition from High School--> College?
Very smooth really didn't have to change my work ethics or anything drastically.
3. What are the primary differences between High School and College life?
In college I have much greater freedom in my class scheduling and also usually have more free time. It is, at least for me, easier to find stuff to do socially over how it was in high school. There aren't as many silly things like cliques that get in the way.
4. Do you feel that you have less or more time for yourself/ leisure activities at University?
This has varied over my college work. For me my first 2 years were very forgiving and had a lot of extra time for leisure activities. When I started taking upper division courses and got into the harsher material this extra time was taken up with mostly studying.
5. In your opinion, what are the three most important things to look out for in college?
Break up your homework and studying over days/weeks instead of doing everything in the last possible moment. This really makes things work smoother in the long run and really helps with stress from coursework. Make sure to set your priorities on hw/studying right as well. So you don't do stuff like not studying enough for a midterm in favor of finishing a very insignificant assignment.
Be social and active. College life is really bleak when you do absolutely nothing but studying and starcraft 1v1.
Get an internship. An internship really helps your post college job opportunities as well giving you a decent paying job while you are in college. It also gives you a good glimpse about the field you are trying to get into.
6. How much do your subject choices in college factor into Post-Graduate degree eligbilities?
Not much for me.
7. Are you enjoying college/ did you enjoy college?
The first few semesters were pretty bland. Thankfully I am to the interesting material and I can safely say that I am enjoying college.
8. What are you majoring/minoring in?
Mechanical engineering is my major.
9. Do you have any general advice to give for me regarding College or the rest of my HS career?
I cannot emphasize enough how important time management is. It really is the difference between getting a 4 year degree in 4 years or getting a 4 year degree in 6-7 years. I am literally the only one in my classes that is still on track and it is all due to proper time management.
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EPT
