I didn’t mention my study abroad, but it literally changed my life. The circumstances that lead to studying abroad were a result of my own stupidity, but it ultimately paid off. No regrets, even though my dad was pretty hacked off.
I realize that it is a great privilege to be able to afford study abroad, but I think it’s the best educational expense, apart from the degree itself. Everyone can benefit from seeing the world from a different perspective.
I absolutely loved my time in college. I had dreamed about it for so long, and it lived up to expectations. I got to explore and dabble and spend a year abroad. I met lifetime friends. My main college regret was that I was too afraid of looking foolish to try some of the P.E. classes and outdoors clubs. (I rectified that in grad school.)
I definitely regretted my choice of grad school. I was torn between two strong programs, but one was more prestigious and offered more money. I went with the latter and within a day or two of May 1 I called the other program to see if I could change my mind, but they had already given my funding away. That grad school experience was not a happy time for me academically, but I’ve landed in a good spot and am happy with what I do. So all’s well that ends well.
And @Alqbamine32, great song choice! And for others on this thread, it seems as though Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” would also be appropriate.
Payscale.com conducted a survey of 250,000 people asking what college graduates most regretted about their college experience. Only 3.4% of those surveyed responded that they most regretted their choice of school or institution. I found that interesting given the amount of time and energy that those on CC devote to fretting over the choice of college.
The only thing I regret is that I didn’t participate in any extracurriculars other than basketball. I started in club basketball and then switched to intramurals, but never even thought about doing anything else. I was involved in a lot in high school. I don’t know why I didn’t do anything in college.
That survey result is shown at Biggest College Regrets - Compensation Research | PayScale .
The biggest regret was about student loan debt, which is often connected to college choice (i.e. “expensive college A that requires lots of student loans versus less expensive college B that does not require student loans”).
Thanks. I meant to include the link but messed up.
While my path was not similar to yours, I empathize. If I could go back and tell my 14 year old self a thing or two (or three), I would definitely have a lot to say. But hindsight is 20/20. Sigh.
I really didn’t have a choice about where to go to college. I started off at my local commuter school and couldn’t find a major they offered that interested me. I spent two and a half years there taking classes aimlessly, but had fun taking several PE classes (briefly considered being a PE teacher), and also taking trumpet lessons from the band director! My high school didn’t have a band, so I thought why not? The band director was such a nice man and tried to talk me into joining the band telling me I could fake whatever songs I felt were too difficult, but I chickened out thinking it would be awkward because I didn’t know anyone. That a major regret of mine, I think I’d have really enjoyed it.
Finally, after taking a semester off to think about things, I decided to try to see if I could put myself through school at my state’s flagship. I had always wanted to be a forester after reading My Side of the Mountain when I was younger, so I spent three years getting my degree in Forestry. I was very lucky having Native American heritage and got a position with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (has preference in hiring NAs) and have worked for the Agency on and off for more than 30 years. Though being a forester was nothing like I expected, I enjoyed most of the work that I did. Sometimes I wish I had gotten a masters in ornithology, forest entomology, or forest pathology as I think I would have enjoyed the more specialized work better.
While working as a forester, I developed a love of making maps and I could have become a cartographer since my first commuter school had one of the few cartography programs (not GIS) in the US at the time and almost all graduates were offered jobs with the USGS. But I didn’t know the first thing about maps while attending that college, so I never considered the major.
Regrets-not studying abroad, although it wasn’t as popular at the time I was in college! Did do a fun internship at a major theme park for a summer, though, and loved the experience (totally unrelated to my degree, btw). My parents were such troopers.
Not knowing more about what career options were available after college until my senior year. At the time, a biological sciences degree meant going into research or going into medicine. Didn’t know about the 1000 other professions, such as allied health careers one could do, which is partially on me but also not explored by anyone officially guiding me at the time. I found my way eventually!
Do not regret going to the least expensive school, as my parents were able to pay my way, which left me in good financial shape. Do not regret my “least worthy per other threads” degree, as I do enjoy my career and work with remarkable people. Now to go back and read everyone’s responses!
Yikes, I was a complete disaster. I entered college as an immature 17-year old. I was NMF and picked my school based on an NMF scholarship, being able to skip the core curriculum requirements and the fact my riding instructor used to work there. I was first-gen and didn’t realize it was also a major preppy party school. I skipped from major to major and then, at the end of my second year, my poor parents and I all realized enough was enough and I dropped out. I was lucky enough to get a job working for the editor of a local newspaper and stayed there for four years - sorted me out. After that, I entered a secretarial school program for people with two years of college. Realizing that nothing could be tougher than shorthand (that may date me!), I then went back to college, graduating from an open-admission state college with a degree in economics while working as a publicist in the music industry. Entered a Ph.D. program in economics, dropped out after one semester (but met my husband, who was my TA). Went back to working as a temp secretary to earn some money for an MBA program. Didn’t like the corporate life. Temp agency sent me to a bunch of law firms, and I decided I liked lawyers. Everyone had been telling me since I was about five that I was destined to be a lawyer (argumentative!), so I finally gave in to the inevitable. I am a good test taker and had the support of my law firm boss, was somehow accepted at at T3 law school and graduated when I was 30. Since then, I’ve had a thirty-year career in the US and overseas, interesting work, made enough money. So, after all of that, do I regret those initial missteps? Do I wish I had taken a gap year to grow up, had a better sense of what I wanted to do, taken a more direct path, etc? Not really. I wish I hadn’t wasted my parents’ money those first two years in college, but if I look back at the whole saga, it always seems that if I pull out one brick, the whole thing crumbles, and I wouldn’t really have wanted to end up anywhere different or miss any of the adventures I’ve had along the way. It does make me realize that one of the wonders of the US educational system is its tolerance. You can screw up, go off on the wrong track and still come back and be successful if you are willing to work. That’s not the case everywhere.
Zero regrets and would repeat in a heartbeat. I’ve posted here several times that I went to beauty school out of high school and ended up in college by a twist of fate. Michigan changed my life. It takes my breath away that, except for the butterfly effect of a decision made by someone I never met, I would have missed what became the most important, transformational years of my life. And they were perfect.
I loved UT Austin and would have been happy to be a student there for a long time! I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees there.
My only regret was avoiding a couple of engineering classes because the professors were tough (I picked the easier teachers). Later I realized they were world-renowned and I’d missed great opportunities to learn from them.
It would be shocking if anyone on an internet site called college confidential regretted attending college.
I bet people on cat oriented sites like felines as well.
I think my sister would say she regretted going to UT. It wasn’t a good fit for her. She needed a smaller school. Looking back on it, she didn’t have the tools to search for a different school and my dad, a UT prof, saw no reason for her to go someplace else. He told her it was her responsibility to find other schools to consider.
Well I regret not going at 18. I never talk about this, but I got into top Ivy League schools (ironic since I now discourage focus on them, but that was my private high school culture) and turned my back on what I perceived as the conveyor belt to success. It was 1969 and times were turbulent. I had just worked with a Quaker organization in an impoverished community in the south.
I worked in a fish factory, went to Appalachia to drive jeeps for a midwife service, traveled around the country by myself, farmed in Vermont, did a lot of tutoring and writing, and worked my way up to administration in a large homeless shelter. I have taken care of kids with health needs and a parent with dementia.
I have taken three years total college classes, many of them one at a time and fully enjoyed each one. I still do well, but on my terms. At 71 I think about finishing. I do regret a lot, but if I watch a documentary or even listen to certain music of the time, I understand my young self and don’t blame her. Idealism can cause a lot of trouble! I often wish I had put it toward medicine or nursing or law or some other way to be useful. I have been as useful as possible without a degree.
One of my kids jokes that they have rebelled by being successful 
We had some serious family tragedies when I was in my teens. It is also interesting to look back and see how I reacted to those without knowing why at the time. These days there is a lot more attention to the whole child/teen and more awareness. I think that with therapy and better help, I would have gone to college and done fine. My experience kind of motivates participation here on CC I think. And it helped my parenting!
My husband must be about three years younger than you. He dropped out of college as a senior education major and wandered all over the country. He lived on communes in Mississippi and Alaska for a total of six years. He worked with mentally ill people, taught school, cut down 75 foot tall trees, and worked as a rough carpenter and cabinet maker. All those skills have helped him tremendously over the years. I bet what you did turned out to be useful, too.
So many regrets. I honestly regret going at all. It was absolutely wasted on me even though I was prepared. Such an insane amount of school debt I have, to have been a homeschooling mom in the end. Someone should have shaken sense into me, honestly. I’m grateful every single day that my kids will graduate without debt, because I would not have been able to bring myself to advocate them taking it on. I was the first person in my family to go to college, so I really had no guidance at all.
When I went through the application process at my really large Texas HS, most kids went to college in Texas unless they got into an Ivy league or equivalent university.
There was a pecking order:
Top of class: Ivy league
Almost top of class: Rice
Top 10-20%: UT or A&M
And then kids sprinkled everywhere else - Baylor, Tech, SMU (Dallas rich kids), UH, etc.
UT was an amazing experience for me but I didnt work that hard and still managed to get by. Back then, Austin’s population was only 500k so it’s nowhere near as congested as it is now. The Oasis seemed remote and so far away.
There is also no way I wouldve done well in today’s ultra competitive college process.
No regrets in terms of picking my school or major, but that was luck. I ended up at the right school, in the right major, at the right time, to have a fairly big payoff with fairly low effort. I had fun and also came out in demand and had multiple job offers for years until the rest of the field caught up with the training I received. And as I got to work on the professional development end during that time, I became even more in demand.
What I do regret is marrying my college boyfriend. Not only did he not turn out to be the person I thought he would be after we left college, being married so young and supporting his career had detrimental effects on both my personal and professional development.
No regrets at all. I went to a very large public high school, and was first gen. Went to an Ivy League college, met such a vast range of people from all over the place (so many nationalities, and from literally all over the US, but also from all walks of life, all social-economic levels, such a fascinating combination of people that I’ve almost never experienced again at the same level). I learned so much from the experience. The university also set me up for a great career that I’ve been very satisfied with, plus lifelong friends. I did do 6 months study abroad, which was my first time out of the country and I was able to do a lot of traveling and that was so enriching, too (and FUN). I also fell in love at college and we’ve been joyfully married a long time now ;-). Academically I was really stretched but thrived, and I also managed to enjoy going to lots of parties and loved the social scene. I wish I could repeat it all again ;-). Of course, if I could get 4 more years, there are more courses I’d love to take as I couldn’t fit them all in, and more activities I’d want to be involved in. I’m so happy for all the kids heading off to college this month—such an amazing opportunity for them all!