The College Experience: Is it worth it?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>Hello everyone,
I'm new to this community, this being my first post. I had a question for everyone out there: I will be attending Oregon Tech at the end of September, and what I wanted to know was: how does the college experience really effect what someone, such as myself, get's out of their young adulthood? My college is a small four story, one building campus. There are no sports, activities, or events that take place (nor clubs), as my campus is just a small offshoot of the campus in Klamath Falls. My school has maybe 200-300 students total, of these students, there are maybe 4 students that are my age (The rest of the students are transfer students, coming to finish up their masters and bachelors). I'm worried about missing out on what some people call 'the prime of their lives'. I don't want to have regrets and feel like I did nothing with the prime of my life. For those of you that are wondering why I chose this option:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I will be living at home with my family, the campus I want to attend is five or so minutes away, I live in a small town with a population of 10,000. Most of the students my age are leaving to attend bigger schools that are hours away.</p></li>
<li><p>The reason I wanted to attend Oregon Tech: Wilsonville is because the total cost for me to go to school would be $4,000 after my $4,500 annual scholarship. My living expenses will be free, the college offers everything I need to achieve my masters degree (With the 4+1, I will be able to have my Masters in 5 years in Renewable Energy Engineering and Electrical Engineering)</p></li>
<li><p>My college has internships required for graduation in which you earn a small salary and your entire college is reimbursed back to you, and the rest is paid for in full. This is exclusive to the Wilsonville campus with my degree.</p></li>
<li><p>I've been in a relationship with my girlfriend for about 4 years now, given the way things have gone and the way we interact with each other, I have little doubt in my mind that she'll be there for the rest of my life, and I want to be able to emerge out of college debt free to support her living with me and to purchase a home early on while avoiding debt. (The relationship isn't the scope of my question, just a detail that has some importance)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I don't want to kill my social life and I want to be able to have memorable experiences and actually feel like I'm living some sort of college experience, but I don't know what to do. I doubt that any adult would want to spend time with someone who is barely able to go out and do things that they could do, as I'm sure that most adults enjoy bars and social gatherings like that. What my adviser said to me about that is that it will prepare me to go into the workforce and be prepared to work with people older than me, but the thing is: is that I want to feel like I've done something that isn't just all study, I want to live a little, meet people my age, go to events and activities, enjoy the 'prime of my life' while I'm still young. I can't seem to find an answer in myself, so I'm preaching out to the community to shed some light on what I can do.</p>

<p>Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your advice, every bit helps.</p>

<p>~Michael L.</p>

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<p>Michael,</p>

<p>My question for you is: what is your idea of “the college experience”? If you actually enjoy or care about partying, drinking, having ‘fun’ – aka the college experience that a lot of movies/TV seem to portray, I can tell you that a small campus with no sports will hinder your experience greatly. It won’t be impossible if you know the right people or hang with the right crowd, but it’ll certainly be more difficult than a bigger campus.</p>

<p>Secondly, I applaud you for thinking about your future, financially and all of that. The thing regarding your girlfriend: not to sound like a complete downer but I wouldn’t ever ever (and I highly advise against it) to consider your partner in such big life-changing decisions. This is because I’ve known couples who were “high school sweet hearts” that end up breaking up within the first year of college. Even worse – they break up towards the end of college and realize that they’ve spent so many years trying to make something work when it simply was dragging. College changes people because it is a place and time for people to grow. There is no if you’ll change; rather it is a matter of when and how. Though she is important to you, I’d like you to think about what would happen if you guys broke up… would you regret picking this school?</p>

<p>IMHO, if you do not want to sacrifice your social life and still have the time of your life in college, I’d do research and try to find a decently priced university, that is larger in size, so you can get the experience of on-campus events, parties, meeting tons of new people, etc. Does your state flagship offer fairly good scholarships? I can definitely tell you from personal experience you won’t get a lot of that from a small campus.</p>

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<p>Thank you for such a quick response lullabies. </p>

<p>This has been troubling me for the past few days and I have a few comments to make:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Even if my girlfriend and I broke up, it wouldn’t change what I would do to secure myself a better future, just my current plan is to do this to emerge out of school debt free. I know that the possibility is out there for us to break up, but I’m optimistic. We plan on moving in together after 2 years, a small bit of time to wait. (She lives 30 minutes away).</p></li>
<li><p>I’m not talking about a crazy drunken party fest, I actually do not plan on ever taking part in any sort of substance like that. I just want to have some friends that I can actually do something with, not just a bunch of older folk who are there to advance themselves in life. You know, some guys that want to go group up and go camping together, or maybe a group to go just see a movie, or go to an amusement park. Really I just want to have some friends and people I can relate to. . .</p></li>
<li><p>I talked with my mum about transferring down to Klamath Falls, she said if that I really valued the experience that much, that I should go for it. My problem being though is that I feel like I’ll be giving up on my dreams of becoming a Renewable Energy Engineer, I’ll end up going in debt, and the extra 6 hour distance would strain my relationship with my family, girlfriend, and loved ones.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I appreciate your advice, I’m just really conflicted on what I can do to have that group of friends that would be willing to hang out, wanting to do things, I don’t care so much about living in a dorm, but meeting some students doing the same thing I’m doing (just graduated, first year of college) would be very nice. </p>

<p>Thank you for your time and effort, and have a superb day.
~Michael L.</p>

4

<p>In my opinion, I would stay where you are. You have a scholarship that provides you with more assistance than you need, you’ll be able to obtain your masters degree there, and you are guaranteed internships (Which are crucial to obtaining a good paying job after you graduate). </p>

<p>I feel like the college experience was kind of overrated. It was fun dorming and living on campus, but I should have never went into debt for it.</p>

5

<p>Before worrying about the college life, you may want to verify the ABET accreditation status of the major.</p>

<p>[Accredited</a> Programs details](<a href=“http://main.abet.org/aps/AccreditedProgramsDetails.aspx?OrganizationID=288]Accredited”>http://main.abet.org/aps/AccreditedProgramsDetails.aspx?OrganizationID=288) indicates that Oregon Institute of Technology has ABET accreditation for the Renewable Energy Engineering major (under general criteria only, and on the main campus and Portland campus), but does not have ABET accreditation for the Electrical Engineering major.</p>

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<p>@ucbalumnus
It definitely is, I already made sure that the degree would actually land me a job of any sort :)</p>

<p>And to quote: “The Oregon Tech degree programs offered at the Wilsonville Campus are included under the institutional accreditation by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, the same agency that accredits all Oregon University System (OUS) institutions. Additionally, ABET accredits our engineering (ABET-EAC) and engineering technology (ABET-TAC) programs. Engineering and engineering technology programs offered at Oregon Tech Wilsonville list their respective ABET accreditation status on their website and catalog page.” </p>

<p>I appreciate the thought though, not everyone would have known to look for this!</p>

<p>~Michael L.</p>

7

<p>@jeremmed77:
It isn’t so much about the whole living in a dorm or partying or anything like that. I just want friends that are close to my age that I can spend time with, get to know, and go out and do things like camping, or boating, or anything really.</p>