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That sounds great.</p>
<p>I would do undergrad again in a heartbeat if I could be 18 again. If I had to stay the same age, then maybe not.</p>
<p>I don’t mind stay the same age, I just want the same knowledge I have as a fifty something. :D</p>
<p>I would love to go back to the same college, same great friends, and same good amount of partying. I would love to look and feel like I did then with no worries except for guys and classwork. I still love listening to the music I grew up with in HS and college. The only thing i would change is my major. I really miss the good ole days</p>
<p>I would go back in a heartbeat if I had parents willing to float the tuition and the “study abroad every summer” funds as most parents I know are currently doing for their kids; but not if I had to borrow every penny and even trainfare to my firts job as I did first time around.</p>
<p>I got married as soon as I graduated and my husband was still in school for one more year. It was heaven having that year at a college without having to go to class! Had a job (easier than classes and a paycheck too!), got cheap rent for married housing, partied on weekends with great friends, and no exams to worry about. Loved every minute of it. I cherish that time still today.</p>
<p>I think I may have tried a different major if I got do-overs though–something more in my true interests (which I know better now than then)</p>
<p>I think 14 years of college were enough :). </p>
<p>I would be really curious to re-do my undergrad Comp Sci tho; Civil Engineering has not changed all that much since my days at Elbonia Tech, but undergrad comp sci right now is drastically different even year to year…</p>
<p>Not to mention free tuition in Elbonia and nearly free at Cajun State… 4 **semesters **that I paid tuition there were around $2500 total (about $600/semester all you can eat, OOS). Thirty years later this much buys you 4 **credit hours **at DD1’s OOS state flagship.</p>
<p>I would love to go back to undergrad at the age I am now-just take challenging courses that interest me in a wide range of areas-literature, theater, art, philosopy, religion. I loved the whole college experience as a young college student- and aside from partying, I still think and academic environment would be heaven. I loved the campus atmosphere-with all the cultural and intellectual offerings.</p>
<p>When the students from my alma mater call me for the fundraising drive they always ask for my favorite memory of college. I always respond that I didn’t have a favorite memory because I LOVED every minute of it. Would I go back and do it over? You bet! The only thing that I would change would be my major.</p>
<p>I have always said that if I ever win the lottery (and don’t worry I don’t play every week), I would quit my job and just start taking classes. I regret not taking more philosophy courses, sciences (pass/fail only) and to immerse myself in anthrolpology courses.</p>
<p>I don’t think I would go back to college now as the me I was then, and maybe not even as the older me if it meant living in a dorm again or taking final exams and writing term papers. Just sitting in on lectures with no obligations would be really awesome, though. You could take risks and study stuff that is impractical or doesn’t match your strengths.</p>
<p>College was just OK for me. I wasn’t emotionally together enough to enjoy it as much as other people seemed to. However, if I could do a Freaky Friday kind of switch and become my daughter for a few months at her sunny CA university, I would do it in a heartbeat. She’s more talented and more together than I ever was, so I think it would be fun to be her for a while. Somehow I doubt she’d want my life for even a day!</p>
<p>All these responses have been great! I didn’t party during college, studied pretty hard and in the field I knew I was destined for. Wish I had then the wisdom that comes with age. I would love to sit in lectures, seminars, etc, today, learning all those things I wish I could study now! So many choices, so few credits to be used…120 credits got filled quickly with all the required courses…there were very few left to just take electives with! I would want to only do electives on my second time around! And, I would party this time too…in moderation of course!</p>
<p>Oh yeah…I just realized the other day I’m NOT going to college with my daughter, ha. I’m kidding, but I think at some level I have lived vicariously through her in the process of applying and haven’t fully appreciated I’m not actually going to be ‘there’. :)</p>
<p>I LOVED my undergrad years. My major, my social world, my carefree-ness. So much so about my studies that I just did another degree, and another, and another…and well now I’m STILL ON CAMPUS! As a professor. And I still love seminars on topics I don’t know, and i keep planning to attend a course here or there, but of course real life gets in the way. </p>
<p>My former MIL lives in Princeton and has taken classes at Princeton for over a decade. She practically goes full time (its free for seniors). Her spouse used to as well, but then he gravitated to reading the news in the library. Gotta love it. They’ve had a great retirement, between Princeton and travel and grandkid visits.</p>
<p>Oldfort, you are onto something!</p>
<p>Maybe I’m being too literal. Although I really look back fondly on my four years in college and got a lot out of it, I’m not sure I’d want to go back. I’m a happier, more fulfilled person than I was. </p>
<p>I don’t need to go back to college to continue to learn. My profession enables me to continue learning – I used to be an academic and although I am no longer a professor, I continue to write with one of my colleagues. In fact, a working paper we wrote is in the top ten downloads in several fields this month. I go to seminars when the subjects intrigue me and I am in town. So, I continue to learn about the fields that interest me the most, but in more depth than when I was a student.</p>
<p>No way would I want to be 18 again. At least the 18-year-old I was; if I could be me as I am now as an 18-year-old, maybe. </p>
<p>But having spent most of my entire life in school (Ph.D. and now professor), I absolutely love the academic environment. Getting paid to talk about interesting things is a great job. Shaw, in my experience it is unusual for people to leave academics . . . I’m curious what caused you to make that decision.</p>
<p>I would have fun with a do over. I’m the opposite of Kelsmom - I would party more and take more risks, both things I didn’t do much of in undergrad. I would go to the same school, probably have the same major but would relax and not stress out so much about grades. I have such fond memories - no wonder I dream about being back at school fairly often. </p>
<p>Starbright, I agree! I was weepy when my S went away, but when my D goes this fall, I will be weeping because I can’t go with her! </p>
<p>Now grad school is a different story. It was occasionally fun, but I have no interest in a do over.</p>
<p>Amesie, I enjoyed academia but was not fully satisfied with just the pursuit of ideas. I wanted to have more of an impact on the world than a typical professor. </p>
<p>I indeed chose my field to be one that created the opportunity for impact on actual decisions, but I still found it a little distant from real impact. I am now in a position where I am called upon to give my advice (and the advice of people in the firm I started) all over the world. CEOs, senior execs, occasional government officials including the president of a country, entrepreneurs. I do occasional pro bono projects – helped end a civil war at one point (people were dying every day before the end of the civil war). I teach in executive education courses every once in a while at the same august institution.</p>
<p>The difference, I guess, Amesie, is that I get paid not to talk about interesting things but to create and apply ideas that people use in decisions that are significant to them. I think it is just a matter of temperament. I want to see my ideas change things. [Of course, that doesn’t mean academics don’t have impact. Think of the folks in genomics or the limited number of social scientists whose analysis helps shape the way people think. Moreover, an attendee at one of my executive courses told me a few years ago that a book I wrote when I was an academic (many years ago) had shaped an institution in his country, but I never even knew I was having an impact until years later.]</p>
<p>Also, both of my parents were professors and I may have wanted to do something different.</p>
<p>It isn’t that I would like to go back , but I do have regrets about my education. I didn’t get my degree and wish I had handled things better than I did back when I was a kid. I wish I had enough drive to stick it out and actually try to attend a better school in the first place</p>
<p>Youth is wasted on the young, lol.</p>
<p>Return to all male Rutgers in the 1960s? Not likely. Return to graduate school at Chapel Hill in the 70s? Anytime!!</p>
<p>I think my idea of heaven would be to be able to live in my college dorm with my friends from the classes a couple years ahead of me and behind me, eating in the college dining hall (so I’d never have to cook or clean up), and just hanging out. Maybe singing in a choir, doing some theatrical productions, attending some lectures, but no homework or papers.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t even have to be 20 again. I’d love for that to be my life in retirement. </p>
<p>I enjoyed so much hanging out in the dining hall with my college classmates. My husband and I both had that so ingrained as the essence of “the college experience” that we were horrified by colleges we visited with our daughter where the meal plan consisted, more or less, of money to spend in a food court or local restaurants. NO DINING HALL???</p>