Parents: looking back, what do you wish you had done in college?

<p>I honestly can’t think of anything I wish I had done in college. I do wish that I had worked for at least a couple of years before going to grad school instead of going straight through after college.</p>

<p>I’m with @kelsmom: College was just about the most perfect time of my life. If I have any regret, it’s that I wish I had taken it more in stride, not been quite so tightly wound.</p>

<p>I loved college -
However, I should have slept with more boys. I dated a whole lot but was pretty selective in restricting my favors to only those who might be potential marriage material. That was probably a mistake in retrospect. And I really should have gone to that Stones concert.
The Stones are the much greater regret.</p>

<p>I had a fantastic time in college. But I wish I had more of an appreciation of the fact that in college there are so many eligibile young men to choose from who would one day make great husbands. At least back then, it really wasn’t long before the good ones got grabbed up, and by the time I was in my late twenties, it was relatively slim pickings. I know that sounds ridiculously sexist, old fashioned, etc, but I’m just sayin. Just about all my girlfriends who have really great husbands met them while in college.</p>

<p>Yep, @screener 22. Met hubby in college. No regrets there.</p>

<p>@alh: Only slept with one. No regrets there, either.</p>

<p>Screener, you should have gone to a bigger school. ;)</p>

<p>Great thread!!!</p>

<p>For the most part, I’m happy with my choices. However, if I had it to do over again, I would:</p>

<ol>
<li>join that folk dance club I was too shy for.</li>
<li>be more daring and have told one particular young man how I really felt about him.</li>
<li>have taken a gap year between college and graduate school and joined the peace corps.</li>
</ol>

<p>I went to college in Cambridge MA from 1975 to 1980 and sucked every positive experience out of it. I had my non-partying years and my partying years, I did high culture and pop culture, museums, orchestras, nobel scientists and poets, punk rock bands, drugs, sex, all night computer programming, literary editing and problem sets.</p>

<p>All my regrets are about my own internal self and maturity. I did not understand my own depression, insecurity and anxieties. I tended to feel stupid, unattractive and worthless whenever I encountered obstacles, challenges or life’s regular setbacks. I changed majors and walked away from choices I had made when the going got tough.</p>

<p>In the end, life turned out well, but I regret that I didn’t face the challenges more head on and make more conscious, well thought through choices. I wish also that certain drugs had been found and were widely prescribed. ;)</p>

<p>I also regret that I didn’t understand the challenge of being a very young woman in a male dominated field facing actual sexism in a male dominated field.</p>

<p>DS15 was relating his day to me in the car yesterday. They are working on mythological allusions in literature and he is doing a presentation on Nike, I believe. I made the mistake of conflating in my mind the Winged Nike of Samothrace with the Temple of Athena Nike. DS mocked me and I swore to refence Jansen’s when I got home to prove my point - he was right - art history smackdown from a teenage boy. I’ve got to brush up. That’s the thing about survey classes, I guess. You know a little about a lot.</p>

<p>I wish I had taken advantage of outside speakers who were brought onto campus. Also, I wish I would have attended more student theater productions and recitals.</p>

<p>Applied to more than one college.
Gone to Woodstock and my supervisor at work be damned.
Asked out a pretty coed who looked like Caroline Kennedy.
Raised my hand in classes more often.
Got my teachers certification when I decided I wanted to become a teacher.
Took more writing courses.</p>

<p>My school hooked me up to a summer program where I worked on a farm in Europe and even got paid a little bit. The mother was a high school language teacher who taught English and wanted to speak the language every chance she could.</p>

<p>Things I did do that y’all are making me feel good about:</p>

<ol>
<li>Took Art History 101, 102, then more and more ending up with an MA in Art History that was sandwiched between a BA in Biology and an MD.</li>
<li>spent a year in Europe as an exchange student between HS and college (Does that count as Study Abroad?)</li>
<li>Saw Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Grateful Dead, Santana and a few others that escape me at the moment. Did see Stones few years ago finally.</li>
</ol>

<p>Things I wish I’d done (more of):</p>

<ol>
<li>widened my circle of friends beyond the ‘dorm’ group and got to know more of the fabulous people that were at college.</li>
<li>worried less about how ‘whatever’ would look like to others and did ‘whatever.’</li>
<li>taken a geology class; I’m completely smitten with the Utah red rocks.</li>
<li>gone to office hours and spent more time with professors. I thought that was uncool.</li>
<li>gone to see ‘Sweetness’ run and ‘Air Jordan’ soar.</li>
</ol>

<p>^^ Oh, yes…You must attend those monumental, life-changing concerts… (although it may be difficult to discern which groups will be momentous at the time…)</p>

<p>Hmmmm… I’d have to go even further back to high school. I regret not taking college prep classes in high school. I was on the work path at a young age. I worked full time while getting my associates degree. I continued on to get my BSBA in accounting. It took 9 years total for what should have been a 4 year degree! </p>

<p>If I had it to do over, I would have gone away to college right out of high school and experienced the college social life!</p>