<p>^You know I actually enjoyed the accounting coursework and I did like getting out of the office and working in the field. I think they thing that killed it for me was the 60+ hours a week, the pressure to work Saturdays without billing the client and the realization that they were not going to promote females to partner from within. And I kinda didn’t like it when they told the married women they better not have babies during tax season. That was uncool. :)</p>
<p>I often think I should go back for a Masters and teach accounting. That may more be my cup of tea.</p>
<p>Not my story but a better one – I recently asked an online alumni discussion from my high school whether it really mattered where you went to college and what people would have done differently. One fine gent replied that he had gone to Dartmouth and dropped out three times – the last one semester short of his degree. What would he have done differently? “If I had it to do over again – I’d go to the University of Hawaii and drop out there!”</p>
<p>Back in the day, my first choice school that I applied to was Boston University. I was accepted there, but my parents wouldn’t pay for it, so I ended up commuting to a local university. </p>
<p>If I could go to college again(and money wasn’t an issue), I think Tufts would be my first choice, assuming that my high school grades would be higher. I remember visiting the Tufts campus the same day that I visited BU, on a senior class trip. There was something about the place that I just loved, nice campus and really friendly students, but I didn’t think that I had a strong enough GPA or test scores to get in there. I’m hoping that my two younger kids will at least check it out.</p>
<p>I would definitely have gone to Cornell. Probably would’ve still ended up in the sciences but may never have left that beautiful campus in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>I would have gone to the same school, Berkeley, had the same major, business, would not have worked harder, maybe a little better :), and would have tried to have more sex with more girls. I didn’t know girls were so easy. :)</p>
<p>To the OP: I am very familiar with both St. Lawrence Univ. and Bowdoin. Never again!!! I would go to the University of California at Santa Barbara. SLU and Bowdoin are isolated,cold and heavy drinking schools,although I will say that SLU has done away with the troublesome frats.If you like SLU and Bowdoin,then I think that you would love Middlebury College in Vermont. Dartmouth College and Middlebury are very similiar to St. Lawrence,but with more culture and smarter kids-but,especially with respect to Dartmouth,just as much mind numbing drinking as you can handle.The best time to attend either St. Lawrence University or Dartmouth College is in the summer. As for my second choice after U.C.Santa Barbara,I would have chosen the University of British Columbia at Vancouver. Both U.B.C.Vancouver and Santa Barbara are my version of heaven on Earth. SLU and Bowdoin are great for two years,but get old quickly after that.</p>
<p>After rereading the original post,I believe that even isolated and cold Bowdoin and St.Lawrence University offer more than Marquette and the midwest.</p>
<p>Well, I never would have spent the two unhappy years at Washington College. I probably would still go to Michigan, but other schools that might lure me away are my D’s college–Wesleyan, or Swarthmore, Oberlin, or Carleton. There’s an LAC student in me yearning to get out, I guess.</p>
<p>And I’d definitely still major in English–it was like getting away with murder to get to read for four years with few other obligations.</p>
<p>But my real, big regret is not finishing in the UMich Ph.D program, which was like heaven on earth. Man, if I could just go back and slap around my younger self…</p>
<p>Hmmmm…in the ideal world I would have gone to Cooper Union for undergrad archtiecture but the reality is that I wasn’t mature enough or strong enough or talented enough at 17. I was all of those things and more by age 20 but not at age 17.</p>
<p>I’d still do a BArch even though I have had to cobble together an independent liberal arts education. </p>
<p>My parents refused to pay for my private undergrad university until I enlisted my paternal grandmother to persuade them. It was an epic battle but I won it. I took out loans to lessen the constant whinging from the parents. I worked. I had small savings. My parents also refused to pay for my Junior Year ‘Abroad’ , calling it the Hari Krishna School of Architecture. I paid for the year myself including room and board. I have no idea how I managed all of that. I was earning all of $3 per hour at the time.</p>
<p>I have many women friends who were blocked by their parents. Why do women accept defeat so easily?</p>
<p>My do-over would be secondary school. I would have gone to boarding school at 12–preferably abroad. Given that ‘unmarried and childless’ time is unduly short in human life, spending ages 12 to 17 shuffling through life in suburban America was a giant waste of time. In my opinion. Had I gone boarding abroad, I might have been ready for Cooper at 17.</p>
<p>I would go back to Occidental, but I would actually go to class and read the books. I would also have taken voice lessons so that I could join the choir.</p>
<p>Both H and I were raised with limited choices in terms of careers - both of our parents basically told us what fields we were “allowed” to pursue. They insisted that we take up careers that were practical, but not necessarily fun. H wanted to study engineering (his parents said “no” to that one), and I wanted to study journalism/film studies (again the answer was “no”). As a result, we ended up working in the fields of medicine and education.<br>
As far as college is concerned, H received a full-paid undergraduate merit scholarship to an ivy, but chose to attend a school (where he also received a full scholarship) closer to his home, thus giving up the scholarship and the ivy education. If he had to do it over again, he said that he would have chosen the ivy.</p>
<p>Given a second chance, I’d still go to Brown. I would do things differently now – take different courses, work less on school work, take risks in other areas.</p>
<p>“Would have majored in what I really wanted to study, not what I was told I could get a good job in.”</p>
<p>I did major in what I wanted to study, and I don’t regret that. But I find it interesting how many students here on CC have parents who are focused primarily on future careers and seem to freak if their kid wants to major in English.</p>
<p>sly-vt,
I like your statement “parents who are focused primarily on future careers and seem to freak if their kid wants to major in English”. Maybe some parents actually have the education and life experience to be able to advise their kids to the best of their ability. They also don’t want to spend their hard-earned money on a degree that might not lead anywhere in terms of a career.</p>
<p>“They also don’t want to spend their hard-earned money on a degree that might not lead anywhere in terms of a career.”</p>
<p>Often true. For us, we never discussed college as having much to do with a career at all, so we urged them to major in whatever they wanted. I’m not looking to get a tangible return on my money, but the intangibles are worth it.</p>
<p>If I were 18 again, I would venture out of Texas, but probably not out of the south. I’d still definitely do a liberal arts college. Rhodes, Sewanee, or Davidson. Possibly Whitman, Carleton, or Hamilton if I were feeling more adventurous.</p>