<p>No, college sucks.</p>
<p>
Yup, me too. Having a tough first quarter as a freshman…
I’d much prefer being back in high school. Maybe it gets better :/</p>
<p>its meh right now, i might need to turn it up :P</p>
<p>Every 4 years I’m alive are the best 4 years of my life.</p>
<p>I found a school that I love. I’m only one semester in, but so far it’s been great, especially since I am living in the dorms. I have made a lot of new friends who I have more in common with than my high school friends and I did. Also, since I’m only a freshman, I think the work load is the easiest for me now that it will be all through college, and I don’t have a job at the moment, so I am enjoying the free time. I’m not really expecting it to be the best four years of my life… I would hope that when I have a family and a career it will be even better, but for now, I’m loving it.</p>
<p>I love college even though my major is hard, and I don’t get nearly enough sleep. It’s what you make of it.</p>
<p>As you see from the sampling of opinions on this page, there is no universal rule. Still, I think college has the potential to be a real highlight. Contrasted to being in the workforce, you don’t spend the entire day at the same task(s) since you take a variety of classes. Your time is relatively unscheduled for the most part and its easy to get a few hours to go explore or enjoy with friends. Time has a different sense, too. At work its the same things week in and out, month in and out. But in school every semester you have a chance to change things up, and there are real breaks from the whole thing at Xmas and over the summer. There is also the opportunity to live somewhere else for a while; most college students can easily arrange to spend a term or longer abroad, while once you’re working you’ll be dashing thru overseas destination(s) on the 2 or 3 weeks of vacation you get that year.</p>
<p>But rather than worry about whether it will be the best 4 years for you or not, I suggest a different focus. Resolve to graduate with no regrets. College offers tons of opportunities, but its going to be up to you to take advantage of them. Humans are fallible so don’t expect to make perfect decisions, but you can hold yourself to a standard that says you tried. Tried new things, explored new places, made new friends, took classes in new areas, etc. And if you do that you will be comfortable knowing you did the best you could, whether it turns out to be the most wonderful 4 years or doesn’t.</p>
<p>I feel sorry for anyone who experiences the zenith of joie de vivre from 18-22. That leaves you with what, 60 more years of never loving life that much again?</p>
<p>College can be an amazing four years of your life. It can be terrible. I’ve found it to be a mix: I love the flexibility and freedom, I hate the homework. Seriously, that’s the biggest reason I want to graduate. I want a job where I leave work at the door, where I don’t have to worry about homework and projects and papers and other make-work like that. But boy do I love going to class at 11AM, staying up late, doing random typical college kid stuff. Oh yeah, vacation. Like mikemac said, you will never get this much vacation again. Even some of the best jobs for vacation time that I can think of only give you a month of vacation a year. Whereas in college you generally have about 2.5-3 months of summer break, Thanksgiving break, and winter break. It is awesome. Study abroad is also an amazing opportunity that I wish I had seized. Of all the regrets in my life, not studying abroad is probably in the top 5.</p>
<p>College hasn’t been what I expected but I blame that largely on the stereotypes perpetuated by popular culture that depict it as a 24/7 four year party where you meet the world’s greatest people and hook up with lots of chicks while also having philosophical discussions about life at 2AM on the quad. No, it ain’t like that at all, but it’s still pretty fun.</p>
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Not to take the discussion too far afield, but I’ve read that students that spend a term abroad rate it one of the top experiences of their college years. On the flip side, I was talking with a friend who spend almost 3 weeks in Europe this summer. He said he was a little intimidated by the whole prospect of going overseas when he was younger. But being there, he said, was amazing and what came over him was a pang of regret that the opportunity to spend months there is long gone.</p>
<p>College should be a growth experience. Which brings up the thought of growing pains. As one decades out of college, some of the sorriest folks I know are those for whom college was the best period of their life (just think of the star high school athlete who never left the hometown). Hopefully, it will be a good memory filled with mixed emotions.</p>
<p>I think this is one of the most terrible and fallacious things adults say to their kids. Seriously? You get four great years between the ages of 18 and 22 and then it’s downhill? Who on earth wants to go through life thinking the most fun they’ll ever have was had in college? Of course this isn’t true! </p>
<p>Your college years can be fantastic, primarily because you have many of the freedoms of adulthood without the corresponding responsibilities, like paying rent and electric bills, but no matter how good those years are, you will likely have many better years that follow. In the years after college, you will have more money, more wisdom, better food and wine, friends you choose based on common interests rather than proximity, more privacy, more clearly defined values, and for some, a more satisfying spiritual life, more choices about what work you’d like to do, and housing that is more to your own taste.</p>
<p>Although I loved my years in college, and have had several years since that I would not wish on anyone, I can still say unequivocally that the years after I graduated have been the best of my life.</p>
<p>First taste of freedom can leave a lasting impression.</p>
<p>I graduated college almost 10 years ago, and I can safely say that each life experience has gotten better and better. I enjoyed college better than high school, the post-college mid-twenties years better than college, and the late-twenties/early thirties are even better! Each stage of life brings its own pleasures & challenges.</p>
<p>Also, to echo a few other posters, I don’t have many regrets about my college years, EXCEPT that I didn’t study abroad. Frankly, I thought I was having too much fun and would miss my stateside friends too much if I went away for a semester. I regret it now…oh well!</p>
<p>Also, LOL @ Massmomm about the food – I think about what I used to eat and drink in college and it makes me shudder…</p>
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<p>Way to rub it in 
**** whoever invents a time machine is going to be a very rich person.</p>
<p>Axelrod makes a good point too. I think the experience of living more on your own and exploring what you like, and how that leads to personal growth, is the most valuable part of college. Worth tens of thousands of dollars? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s what will stick with me for far longer than whatever I’ve learned in class.</p>
<p>College is a special time, for many reasons – for many it’s certainly one of the most memorable times.</p>
<p>The Best – what a depressing thought – 21 or 22, and it’s all downhill from there?</p>
<p>Speaking from almost 35 years down the road from college, I would say that each period in life has it’s own events that are special. For example – I don’t think anything in College compares to the experience of the birth of a child (or for that matter, the first 4 years of parenthood). I could come up with many more.</p>
<p>Not necessarily the best 3+ years of one’s life (in my situation), but it has the potential to be.</p>
<p>First year at Rutgers, and for the most part, I’m loving it. KEYWORDS: For the most part. I am in an honors dorm too, and people just tend to be more sociable and mature, including my roommate, so I click well with them. I got to choose most of my classes, all of which I were interested in. Everything in college seems manageable right now and so much downtime is available (compared to HS) to the point that if I do poorly on an exam, it’s mostly because of a defunct in time management more than rote difficulty. In fact, I dropped a particularly hard one (molecular bio) because I didn’t want to deal with it my first semester, even though I could’ve passed with a B or above if I studied more. I don’t party at all, but I still find fun in attending various assemblies and events on campus, traveling between dorms just to say hi to someone and hope that the conversation evolves to something cool or meaningful (IMPROMPTU might I mention.) In HS, I actually felt like I had much more of a rigid schedule.</p>
<p>To me, college feels like the last chance you can hold onto quote “childish” antics while at the same time, having the first taste of independence in making both grand and trivial decisions (what career, what major, what classes, when/where/how to study, when/who to socialize, whether to actively seek out help for academic/professional/social issues). College is awesome in that you are exposed to people, ideas, subjects, and political/social issues that you might never hear of again when you’re out of college. You’ll notice that in the community there’s so much to explore and that there are accomplished people in every facet of life, from the academic subjects engineering to business to english, to the extracurricular (music, sports) to professional events to activist movements. The intertwining ideas in college excite me, although I may be getting too idealistic and starry-eyed now haha.</p>
<p>There’s still minor cons, the outright inconsiderate or socially awkward people you’ll meet in the real world can be met in college. Work can be difficult, but in my case, because I like the courses I’m in, it’s mostly not a bother. Time management is really the biggest problem - choosing what to devote your time to what (from studying to socializing to ECs to etc). I could also get into the whole tuition issue, but in short imo, spending money on a college degree is very much worth it (of course if you don’t want a job that doesn’t require a BA or BS) so long as you major in a relevant field; if not, emphasize actively improving your resume during college with ECs, internships, GPA boosts, and perhaps part time jobs/networking on the side. Scholarships before loans help too with that.</p>
<p>I guess that’s what people mean when they say every 4 years is the best 4 years. You’ve got to be realistic with what a college degree will lead to and take advantage of all the opportunities (not just academic) that come with spending 4 whole years secluded from home and family and into an environment of dynamic people and ideas. Hopefully the experiences I’ll get college will be a bridge to ever more insightful experiences rather than a life tied down by a rigid job and social life.</p>
<p>No, they aren’t.</p>
<p>They might be the best years of your life so far (= better than middle school or high school, I hope) </p>
<p>But if anyone “peaks” in their life by the time they are 22 or so I feel real sorry for them.</p>
<p>There’s a larger issue here: what you are doing with your life right now!</p>
<p>It’s like the saying a friend taught me about parties at college and it’s turned out to be great advice in life: If you wanna have fun ya gotta bring your own party.</p>
<p>AKA you get out of life what you put into it.</p>
<p>honestly, it depends. you can either excel at your studies, do very well but have a little fun or you can have a blast and surround yourself with amazing friends and activities and be an average student or worse. there’s also the middle where you need to know when to party and when to study which i think is the healthiest. it’s completely up to you but it’s definitely an experience that’s for sure.</p>