<p>How I conceived college was that college changed many students' lives, even if they didn't graduate. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. The "Colleges that Change Lives" aren't grouped as such for nothing.</p>
<p>Now, how college changed your life?</p>
<p>Those “colleges that change lives” do no more than most other schools- some less than they could have for many of us. Life is a series of experiences- I can’t imagine being limited by not having the full college experience- living away from home, the academics, the social activities and experiencing the other students. Changes- only a progression of life. HS academic stars like myself need to continue, college is the natural choice.</p>
<p>There has to be someone, somewhere on CC, for whom college was (or is) a life-changing experience, especially since many of those that actually attended college attended some of the better colleges, some of which did live a complete college experience.</p>
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<p>Why? Why does there HAVE to be someone somewhere on CC who supports this idea?</p>
<p>I think most of us would say that college was a factor in who we became, but it was more like a fork in the road. Life changing experience is an over used term, and especially when you think of the intellectual and psychological age of the typical college student, I think it’s over reaching to say that their lives were changes. Their life paths may have been directed, steered, altered, enlightened. But life-changing?</p>
<p>OK, maybe life-changing was a bit hyperbolic but there’s no denying that one’s life path can be somewhat altered in college.</p>
<p>Here is how college changed some people’s lives for the worse
<a href=“Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - The New York Times”>Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - The New York Times;
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<p>College changed my life but of course that’s a long, long time ago–like 47 years ago. I was a gigantic mess in high school. Getting away from high school and from toxic relationships was amazingly good for me. NY doesn’t have a flagship but I went to a high-ranked campus of the State U. of NY. Now my daughter (finishing H.S. junior year) wants to go there too but it’s a lot harder to get into now!</p>
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<p>Second! </p>
<p>If it weren’t for college, I would probably be married in a terrible marriage to my ex-fiance rather than engaged to the amazing person that I am today. I likely would never have found a passion for community health and I would have never broken away from the toxic relationships I had in high school.</p>
<p>Truly, I don’t think you can go to college and NOT change your life. You change a lot in 4+ years and obviously your environment has a lot to do with this.</p>
<p>College changed my life, but in some unusual ways. It hadn’t occurred to anybody before that I could have high functioning autism/asperger’s, and when that theory occurred to me in college my proximity to my university’s autism research center was instrumental in getting me diagnosed. I would never have been diagnosed were it not for those people helping me. Had I not been diagnosed, I would not have completed a degree and I do not think I would have been able to have a successful romantic relationship. I’m currently engaged (to someone I did not meet in college and who did not go to college), and our knowledge of autism and the tools we have learned to cope with it are vital in making this relationship successful. So, I will always be eternally grateful for my time at umich since it allowed me to learn this about myself.</p>
<p>Other than that? I learned how to survive when things get really, really hard. I learned how to get tougher when life gets hard instead of weaker. Obviously an important life skill.</p>
<p>Otherwise, I could take or leave college. I didn’t make any amazing lifelong friends, or gain some kind of amazing new perspective on life. I am probably not going to end up using my degree for very long. I was obsessed with “the college experience” as an 18 year old and in hindsight I think it was one of the least important experiences overall I am ever going to have. You don’t realize when you’re 18 how much better and more influential the years after college are going to be. I think education is critically important, don’t get me wrong, but I think if you get the stereotypical “college experience” you should think of it as a bonus rather than some amazing rite of passage every young person simply must experience in order to grow up. My fiance didn’t even go to college and I think he is more mature and worldly and developed as a person than I will ever be. That can happen when you don’t spend 4+ years of your adult life convincing yourself you need to wait for some kind of amazing life changing experience to happen before you can “find yourself” and become an adult.</p>
<p>A strange question. My reaction is, of course college changes lives. I’m especially thinking about sleep-away college, one’s first adult experience. It’s an intense time, so many things packed into 4 (or so) years. So many thoughts, changes, people, new experiences, new opportunities, new places. Sure, things happen now, but they happen slowly. New experiences are fewer and far between. </p>
<p>I suppose one can go to college, pick a safe major beforehand, plod along with the same type of people one always does, graduate, go back to one’s hometown and settle down, and only be older from the experience. It’s a choice. </p>
<p>There are those who get stimulated by new experiences and those who fear them. The former will be changed by college.</p>
<p>I don’t think college “changed my life” since it was always expected, being 3rd gen college educated (that I know of). If it did anything it helped me pinpoint what I wanted to do as a career, it opened doors to experiences I might not have as easily had. Coming from a small town where I was one of the top seniors, it also exposed me to people who were far more intellectually developed. I think I somehow would have still found my career, I might still have had some of the experiences that I had in college and I probably would have gravitated toward friends similar to those I had in college…college was a factor in my life as it got me somewhere in 4 years that may perhaps have taken longer had I not attended.</p>
<p>Nothing more than providing education that allows me to be more productive in society.</p>
<p>no changing of my life…just 4 fun years. My life changed when my future wife and I decided to go into business together a few years after college.</p>
<p>Going abroad (to Japan) in my Junior Year was life changing. I have vivid memories of the people I met, the food I ate, my travels and the gracious Japanese culture.</p>
<p>I learned that many people aren’t as smart as they think they are.
But some are even more so.</p>
<p>Only at my second college, I learned that there was a world of people that understood and accepted me, where I was just one of the gang. That changed my life more than anything else.</p>
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<p>Oh, it’s possible - it happened a lot in my hometown, which is home to a fourth-tier no-name university where virtually everybody in town went after high school. It’s a very insular place, suspicious of outsiders - very few people gain any perspective because very few ever leave.</p>
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<p>I guess that would be considered a negative depending on your home town. I’ve seen many parts of the world, but nothing beats the town I was born and raised…and there is no place I would have rather been to raise my family. The grass isn’t always greener…</p>
<p>And some times there is more to life than livin’ where the living’ is easy.</p>
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And that’s the whole point, Geeps - you’ve seen many parts of the world. A lot of people from my hometown never leave except to vacation at the same beach where everyone else from there vacations. It’s scary.</p>