I love the life I am currently living, but I do look back at college as one of my favorite seasons of life. I met my husband freshman year. I absolutely loved and am still in close contact with my college roomates. I had a job I enjoyed and was in a sorority where I formed lifelong friendships.
I look back on that time as a fun, carefree season of life where other than working part-time and attending class, I had a lot of freedom and relatively little responsibility. I’ve shared that with my kids, and I hope I’m not setting them up for a huge disappointment.
It sounds like it was the best of times for you, but I know people who didn’t think of college as “a fun, carefree season.”
Not everyone naturally loves school. I relished my college experience but graduated a couple quarters early because I was sick of being broke and of writing papers all the time.
And my husband claims that while undergrad was fine, being a funded PhD student was REALLY the best of times, although my PhD-candidate daughter thinks the exact opposite. (Her stipend now is about what my husband had 35 years ago, so she has a different outlook on the financials of higher education…)
Loved my time as an undergrad. Like OP, I met my now husband during orientation week my freshman year. We had a great balance of fun and work. It was like pre-adulting with all the freedom but none of the big stresses of real life. No complaints about how the rest of our life has gone but we both look back to college with many fond memories.
I was poor and paying my own way through college, so it was a busy time. It wasn’t awful and I’m glad I did it, but my experience was nothing like the experience my kids will have. For better and for worse.
I was poor as well in college but I absolutely loved every minute of it. My only regret is not having made as much as possible out of the academic opportunities available.
I’m not poor anymore, so I’ve told my kid to get ready for a Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School experience!
Yes, I blossomed in college after being the shy kid in high school. I had low points, such as when I got dumped, but overall it was a wonderful experience. I would definitely do it over again if I could!
I absolutely loved college. I was certainly poor overall, but on a ROTC scholarship and with a part time job in the dining hall, so had a little bit of spending money. Junior year I met hubby because he had more money and liked me (aka I didn’t like him at first, but kept going out with him because eating out was appealing compared to the dining hall). 30+ years later we still love each other - money or not.
Back to loving college… I left home from being in the middle of my parent’s bitter divorce that started when I was 11 or so and continued through my school years (the bitter part). It was so nice being free of it all and on my own where no one knew my background - or theirs. I could be ME.
My kids have graduated now and all loved their college years too.
Nope. Hated it. I was poor so I had to work. 85% male engineering college. Never really liked what I was studying but could not envision a path to a good life through math or philosophy.
I dated a woman with borderline personality disorder for nearly two years because, again, what I had was better than what I figured I could get.
It kinda/sorta worked out anyway, and I made some good friends from the common struggle. The best is I have guidance on what my kids should avoid about colleges and they all have loved their choices.
I loved my time in college and look back on it fondly.
But I think that my happiest years- the ones I would go back to relive if I had to choose a time to relive- were the ones when my son lived at home with us from birth through age 18!
I have very few positive memories. I already posted about my awful freshman roommate. I took extra classes and graduated in 3 years. I think I would have been far happier at a LAC and nearer to home.
I loved my college years. At least that’s what I think now, when I think back on them. In reality, I was too stressed out over getting As, and should have let loose a little and enjoyed the whole experience of college life more. Grad school (funded PhD program) was definitely better than college. Working, TAing, school friends, living alone, all of it was a fun transition into adulthood.
Every part of life has it’s pros and cons. If you do it “right” college can be loads of fun. Most of the “problem” is being overworked and underpaid. We all have the stories. But you figure it out and remember it fondly.
If I could only do college like Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School – money & grades not being issues.
I absolutely love this post. This is why I’ve been so neurotic about finding the ‘perfect’ school for my girls. I want them to have an amazing four years. I feel like if it’s just an okay school and they are fine, but not thrilled, it would be a wasted opportunity. The four years at school can set your trajectory for life - who you marry, where you work after college, your friends for life. College has so much potential to be the best years of your life. I frittered my time away, but still enjoyed it. I hope they excel in ways that I didn’t. Thanks for starting this thread.
It was fine for me. I think we need to be careful about setting expectations for our kids that these are the “best years of your life.” I loved the freedom, but did not take nearly as much advantage of all that was offered. I much preferred law school. I was more mature, knew what I wanted, and made great friends.
I returned to the USA for college after six years abroad, so I was dealing with culture shock and had nothing in common with my college classmates.
I also was unable to choose a good match school for me while living overseas.
To add insult to injury, I transferred after my freshman year and then spent my junior year abroad (the junior year abroad was my best year of college).
I was a very bright, insecure, shy kid with limited social skills when I went to college and wanted to study math and social science. Although I was also a minor sport athlete, I didn’t fit in at all in our jock-oriented HS. I got to college (one of HYP) and immediately felt, “There are people like me here.” Lots of smart, academically oriented kids. I made a small number of lifelong friends, worked incredibly hard, played on a varsity team, had jobs as research assistants and had girlfriends my last two years there (as I worked very hard on my social skills). I loved many aspects of my undergraduate experience and go back every five years for reunions as do my friends (my wife says it is a cult). But, I was still developing as a person and had a lot of growth left, which has made later years better.
As is consistent with the literature on happiness, people get happier over time (with a dip in the middle probably corresponding to the years of raising young children). I worked extremely hard in grad school, took a job as a professor at a business school, left to work on Wall Street, started a couple of companies, taught (and continue to teach) an executive course every year at my old school, and done pro bono work. Over time, I’ve gotten more comfortable with myself, created a job for myself that didn’t exist when I was in college and that I love, have made a very nice life with a great wife and family (not without problems of course), take interesting vacations, and have interesting friends. Life is pretty good. I’m even starting up a new company on top of the other things I do. I’d say I’m happier now that when I was an undergrad.
I loathed every minute of it. I would have been much better off working and going to school part time. Which was what I did when I got my master’s and that was fine. I hated the classes, the dorm, the dating scene, everything but the people. I did meet my best friend freshman year and we’re still friends fifty years later. To this day I have nightmares about having to go back to college and live in a dorm.
Doing a PhD was much more fun than being an undergraduate. I was more mature and knew how everything worked, and had far more money and time on my hands to play multiple sports, run various clubs, get away at weekends, etc. But I realized after getting a real (non-academic) job that I’d taken three years to do what in the real world would have been about six months work.
