<p>I also wish I would have applied to more colleges and made the time to go on more visits so that I wouldnt be stuck going somewhere that I hate.</p>
<p>Also, getting into a major i knew nothing about and still no nothing about</p>
<ul>
<li>Tried harder in HS</li>
<li>Figured out my major earlier on. Switching it four times was just plain stupid.</li>
</ul>
<p>not getting on ADD meds until second semester of junior year because my parents didnt believe me…3.6 to a 4.3? i think i had more potential than they thought…</p>
<p>Lol… People can accomplish amazing things when they’re hopped up on stimulants all the time.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, mine isn’t trying harder in high school. I got to where I wanted to be in the end (UT Austin) without stressing myself. It’s crazy though, if I studied like I do now when I was in high school, I’d be at Harvard or something. </p>
<p>I regret joining a sorority my sophomore year and wasting a ton of money for NOTHING! :)</p>
<p>
These pills do not measure your potential, off-the-pills measures your potential. If everyone in the world took ADD meds I’m sure 4.0’s’s would become the new 2.9’s.</p>
<p>
That’s not true. You can’t just take a magic pill that makes you smarter. The effects allow you to perform at your best by enhancing your mood, which makes you more motivated to accomplish tasks, and by increasing your alertness.</p>
<p>You probably are right about 4.0s becoming commonplace, because I don’t honestly believe there is as much difference in intelligence from one person to the next as there appears to be based on performance in school or on IQ tests. I think it all has to do with motivation. If kids are unmotivated at young ages and fall behind by not establishing an adequate foundation, they are going to struggle a lot more than other students to build on that foundation and will need even more motivation to catch up. Even if the foundation is solid, there comes a point when taking in new information does not seem worth the effort (and arguably isn’t).</p>
<p>The more I think about it, I really shouldn’t dwell on my regrets. I have two more years in college to prove myself. I’m going to graduate school. And all of the things that I failed to do in high school, I’m making sure I do now. I want to graduate with a 3.5 GPA, honors in my major, with a research and honors thesis paper under my belt. I think I can do it. =]</p>
<p>gotakun, everyone has their own range of attention span. Everyone has their own level of persistence to remain dedicated, and everyone has their own typical level of how long they can maintain concentration before swerving off the road. Your ability to perform at top-notch level can certainly be brought out by these pills, but potential accounts for more than mere ability, potential accounts for everything - including attention span or lack thereof. By taking an ADD pill, you are altering a variable that measures your potential.</p>
<p>
I love this because I completely agree and always advocate this.</p>
<p>Failing half of my classes sophomore year in high school.
Just being a mess in general.</p>
<p>To briefly summarize my story, I started at a community college. Then I attended multiple four-year universities while pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. After earning this degree, I attended McGill University, taking undergraduate courses to prepare for a graduate degree in another field. The following do not apply to the community college or to McGill, both of which were highly rewarding.</p>
<p>I regret having very limited options for which universities I could attend. Finances were an issue. Also, my parents were dead-set against me leaving the region for university. This was a problem because the universities which were a good fit were usually in other parts of the country.</p>
<p>I regret having studied for a specialized field when I don’t truly have a passion for it. Looking back, I got into Computer Science for the wrong reasons. But my education isn’t well-rounded enough to be applied to fields I might actually have a passion for. (Hence the reason I found this site - substantial additional undergraduate coursework is probably needed to break into any of these fields.)</p>
<p>I regret having attended universities where I was socially unwelcome. As with many of you, I started to open up later in high school. I found that I really enjoyed being social and outgoing. But at the four-year universities I attended, I just didn’t fit into the social environment. It didn’t help that the universities that would have been a good fit socially were out of my price range, in other parts of the country, or both. For me, university was a very isolating experience. It taught me that I was socially undesirable and that I needed to adapt by becoming reclusive and intensely individualistic. It would have been much better to find a safe environment where I could have learned to become outgoing and a part of a community.</p>
<p>I regret not graduating from a university with a national reputation. As it stands, the reputation and alumni network of the university are concentrated in a place where I no longer live. It’s been an uphill battle to build a career in places where I’m actually interested in living. The work I’ve found in the IT field has usually been informal at best and low-quality at worst. Said work also generally hasn’t required a degree at all, making me wonder why I even bothered to finish university.</p>
<p>And then, having attended McGill University for a year, I know what it’s like to be academically challenged. I know what it’s like to be welcomed and included in a community. I now see that university can indeed be a time where we grow as human beings. I know what it’s like to enjoy university and to have a social life there. I deeply regret that all four years of my undergraduate experience couldn’t have been like my year at McGill.</p>
<p>I have so many regrets in life, I’d rather not list them…</p>
<p>In retrospect, nothing. I used to have many regrets, but I realize that everything falls into its place and my life is piecing together.</p>
<p>
I had my senior award ceremony today, regret that I did not inform school administration (by due date) of my scholarships at The University of Iowa discovering that I was recognized for a host of other things.</p>
<p>1) Doing the running Start plan (going to college and receiving credit for both HS and college). I lost any type of social life I had with my high school friends (none of them did RS) and I find it difficult to make friends at Community colleges.</p>
<p>2) Assuming I had my major figured out and taking classes for that major (and then switching.</p>
<p>3) Not applying to Universities when most people did. (Didn’t think I’d have enough money). Now I have to transfer to UW during winter quarter and I hate the thought of it.</p>
<ol>
<li>I Completely annihilated my freshman year grades, with C’s and D’s.</li>
<li>Not doing my best during the first semester of sophomore year - ended up with 2 B’s.</li>
<li>Not trying out for enough AP classes for junior (this year).</li>
<li>Not participating in any extracurricular activities/clubs until this year - high chance of not obtaining any positions next year. </li>
<li>Not finishing my Community Service hours the past 2 years.</li>
<li>Missing deadlines for summer opportunities.</li>
<li>Messing up on my SAT essay on my second test - ended up with 2090, lower than my first score (2100).</li>
</ol>
<p>Having a too narrow set of friends both in high school and now </p>
<p>Taking courses where I would not be guaranteed an A (now suffering from lame GPAitis)</p>
<p>Not becoming more involved in extracurriculars (being lazy and dispassionate as hell)</p>
<p>Not trying harder way back in 5th grade…No joke.
After that my district placed all the “smart” kids into accelerated math and science classes which set them up to take more advanced classes all the way into HS. I got into math, which is the only way I could have taken calculus this year, but the science screwed me over. I could have taken more APs and I’m pretty sure if I hung out with more honors students instead of the crowd of degenerates I dealt with most of my HS career…I’d be a bit more serious about my academics.
And ECs.</p>
<p>College: not cramming more easy classes into my schedule. Not taking more pass/fail options (I could have avoided the only C+ I got during college). Not taking ADD meds to improve my focus so I could have raised my GPA.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh come on. You’d do the exact same thing if the opportunity presented itself.</p>
<p>I actually wouldn’t, and I have had the opportunity. I tried an ADD pill once, and denied it every other times it was offered. I’m not passing judgment, I’m simply giving my opinion. Honestly, I perform just the same off of it, which is why I don’t care to use it nor really flip about others using it (& also cause I’ve tried it, so can’t be hypocrite? but actually I could be if I wanted since I only tried it and never again). 12 hour study streak? No problem. It’ll take a lot, but it’ll be worth it and I’ll be able to say that it was a job well-done. I don’t deny that it definitely gives you extreme focus, but I look at it as cheating. It’s a cheap way to cheat the system of true hard work and dedication.</p>