<p>So it's the middle of December. Most schools are either out for winter break or will be out soon. </p>
<p>Has anyone felt a bit let down? People were telling me left and right that college is awesome, you have a blast. My high school experience, to be succinct, sucked. I admit there were some fun times, but they mostly involved heavy drinking or heavy smoking. Two things I'd rather not do. A lot of the people at my school were not as mature as I thought they'd be. And living in a dorm hall kinda sucked. My roommate was cool, but messy as hell and my floor was so loud. I mean if they were loud at 10PM I wouldn't have cared. But no, they were loud at 1AM on weekdays when some people want to sleep. My RA didn't give a .... </p>
<p>This might vary from school to school, but I also found that I didn't have much freedom in picking classes. For instance, I wanted to business courses... but the only ones I could do were the introductory one. Makes sense for the first semester, but after those I'd be stuck. Why? Because at my school you have to be in the business school to take most business classes. I also apparently had reached the limit of credits for first semester freshmen, because when I tried to add Army ROTC to my classes, I was told that I had too many credits or some crap like that.</p>
<p>After a lot of thinking I decided to move back home and I'm gonna study at my state university (which is quite good honestly). I'm not keen on living in a dorm (I'm actually kinda praying that there isn't enough housing available), and at this point I just want to get my degree so I can do something exciting with my life.</p>
<p>Was going to Santa Clara University in Cali, now I’ll be attending University of Maryland - College Park. SCU is a good school, and it has strong engineering and business programs, but it wasn’t the place for me.</p>
<p>Yep.
I don’t have the money and the grades(3.00001 GPA, 24 on ACT, didn’t do activites but orchestra, played football for one year, volunteering is for idiots) to go to a university for graphic design, so I am taking it at CC, which aparently even reps from the colleges in my state admit is better then what their colleges offer. Here I am, 1 semester into college, no friends, no aquaintances, haven’t been to a party yet, haven’t done anything. I have been taking the initiative to talk and well attempt to socialize with people and flirt with girls but nothing has taken. So yeah, I was disillusioned. I thought it was going to be easier to make friends. This **** is harder then ever.</p>
<p>I honestly pictured myself winning a nobel prize by now. Oh well, I don’t play starcraft anymore… which for an ECE is a big thing. Next step : quit forums.</p>
<p>@BillyMays thing is, CC is different from a four-year college. I don’t know the exact statistics for your school but generally speaking, you have a fair amount of older students. People who were/are in the military, people who didn’t go to college before, people who want to get a second bachelor’s, people who are just taking classes for the sake of learning, etc. Hell you probably even have a few ex-cons who’ve decided to be productive citizens of society.</p>
<p>Are you planning on transferring to a four-year? If so you’ll find it’s a lively scene.</p>
<p>Sometimes it felt just like the movies. Some things were more exciting than imagined, a lot of things were less. I found I had way more free time at the beginning and middle of the semester than I knew what to do with and was bored to death so I just overslept.</p>
<p>Academically, I was a bit disappointed. I used to enjoy learning, but now I feel like I’m just going through the motions to get a piece of paper. </p>
<p>I keep running into the same type of people – people that I can’t even remotely relate to. Didn’t make a new awesome group of friends or anything of the sort. Not a huge priority for me since I’m a bit of a loner and I didn’t try that hard to be overly social. A large portion of my successful social experiences were artificial. I feel like I would fit in a lot better at another university, but I can’t see myself leaving.</p>
<p>I’m not really giving up hope though, as it’s only the beginning. I’ve just had to realign my expectations significantly across the board. If I still feel this way by this time next year, I may have to take greater action.</p>
<p>I’m kind of the same as you OP. I don’t like the school and I feel like I don’t fit in socially. Going back to my state school of Rutgers in the fall possibly. Even though I have to give up my major.</p>
<p>I totally agree that college was not as awesome as I imagined it to be. I enjoyed my junior and senior years of high school, had many good memories, but was ready to move on. I couldn’t wait for the college experiences: meeting friends more like me, meeting girls, taking very stimulating classes, more freedom with scheduling, etc. Now, I wish I could go back to high school. There were times when I felt very lonely, unhappy, wishing I chose another school I got into (Duke), and unmotivated during my first semester. My grades are not as good as they were in high school. It was pretty much the worst 3 months of my life, but to be honest, I was in the same school district for 14 years beforehand so I never had to adjust to moving or what not. Near the end of semester, the situation has improved a little bit socially as I have made more friends, but not much. I am just going into next semester with faith that everything will be alright at the end and to work harder so I can have an option to transfer to a peer school if I want to. I am also going to continue building up friendships so the experience will end up being a lot better.</p>
<p>It sucks because very few people who feel the way we do talk about it openly. When teachers and my friends at other schools ask me how college is going, I am honest and say that my first semester was quite rough. A lot of my friends are having their times of their lives and all, while I am here struggling… it seems like I am the only one, when in reality, a large number of Class of 2013ers are feeling the same way as I do.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I know next semester will be better… I will work harder academically and socially and try not to let my unhappiness affect my grades like it did this semester.</p>
<p>I feel very blessed to be able to attend Rice and to have gotten into schools like Duke because I know many people would die to get into just one of these schools. It is just frustrating when things are going worse (both grades, making friends, having fun, etc.) for me now than they were a year ago. However, it has been a very humbling experience and it has allowed me to grow as a person.</p>
<p>I’m glad you brought this up as a post… many freshmen are unhappy with their college experiences right now, but they just don’t want to admit it because they fear others will think they are crazy. I encourage all of you feeling unhappy to post on this board.</p>
<p>I agree with slik nik that it’s great to bring up this topic. Students don’t get enough opportunities to discuss things like this openly.</p>
<p>I’m here for my son so my own college experiences go back a generation. I was happy my first semester at college, then it was pretty bad until I transferred a year and a half later. Transferring worked out great for me. I went to a much different place where I fit in much better, and things have gone very well for me since then. It was strange that so many of my friends at the first college were so unhappy but almost all of them stayed for the entire four years; some even longer. It would have been nice if I could have talked about it as it was happening.</p>
<p>Of course I’m not suggesting that everyone should transfer and it will work out. I think in my case I was unlucky the first time and lucky the second time. YMMV.</p>
<p>I dunno. So far, college has felt a lot like summer camp–probably due to the fact that my trimester schedule means I’ve only been there for 10 weeks so far. </p>
<p>I’m sticking to my conviction that I am at the perfect school for me. But I also realize, knowing myself, that it takes me a little while longer to make friends than the average person. I’ve got tons of “hi/bye” friends (those people you’d greet if you passed on the sidewalk but never hang out with); I just haven’t crossed to the “real” friend stage yet. Other than that, I have no complaints. Classes are good, registration is good, my dorm is mostly good, and my roommate is great.</p>
<p>So I’m optimistic heading into the next term. But I agree, hearing all of your high school friends gush about what an amazing experience they’re having makes it easy to feel like some sort of weirdo. Just realize that their short answers to the endlessly-repeated question “How’s school?” rarely tell the whole story. You’re not alone, and there’s no shame in missing the parts of your high school life when everyone knew you already and you didn’t have to work so hard to put yourself out there.</p>
<p>Still, college>>>>>>high school, any day of the week. I mean, lunch at 12:03 every day? Getting kicked out of the library for not wearing your school ID? Waking up at 5:00am to put the finishing touches on your AP Lit essay before your 6:45 “Zero Hour” AP Chem class? Really?</p>
<p>Yes.
I’m a junior in college and i fantasized ALL OF H.S. about “The glories and wonders of this beautiful paradise we call college” — and cannot wait to get the heck out now!!</p>
I mean, lunch at 12:03 every day? Getting kicked out of the library for not wearing your school ID? Waking up at 5:00am to put the finishing touches on your AP Lit essay before your 6:45 “Zero Hour” AP Chem class? Really?</p>