<p>Would you recommend them to your son?</p>
<p>Studying my butt off and getting (almost) straight A’s. It opened many doors for me as an upperclass"man", (became a teaching assistant as a junior), and made the job search thing as a senior actually “fun”! I still partied (more than I hope my 2 D’s do), but learning the worth ethic that I did in college, has carried through in most everything I do.</p>
<p>Dropping out and working until I had a focus–and then going back, of course. I wouldn’t recommend this to my son because our circumstances are totally different.</p>
<p>Honestly listening to my heart in choosing a major(civil engineering,go figure) and being very lucky in choosing my academic advisor who encouraged me to take chances in my selection of tech and non-tech electives. It didn’t make my soph-sr years easy but it did make them far more interesting.</p>
<p>Joining a “cooperative” housing and dining program as an alternative to the regular approach (at Oberlin).</p>
<p>This involved units of several hundred students. We planned every meal, shopped ingredients, cooked (with an adult head cook in charge), served, and bussed all of our own dishes 3 meals daily. We cleaned our own halls and bathrooms. We saved our parents the equivalent of a work/study job, and it was open to all regardless of income background. </p>
<p>My chosen job was weekly bread-baker. Others learned how to cook this way.</p>
<p>How it changed me: in the workplace, I always looked for ways to unite people to share resources, order supplies in bulk for better rates, or make shortcuts based on common needs that had been overlooked. By looking at food as a resource that could be shared and reapportioned wisely, I learned to look at other resources this way, everything from aluminum foil to time with my extended family.</p>
<p>Taking a freshman seminar. </p>
<p>It caused me to listen to my heart and led to the second great decision majoring in something that I enjoyed every day and led me to a career I love. I felt kind of evil going to an Ivy and majoring in art (and to be fair architectural history and design) instead of something more “intellectual”.</p>
<p>Taking a graduate seminar in something outside my field taught by an visiting expert. I learned more about art historians think than I would have in any survey.</p>
<p>Taking swing dancing lessons my freshman year - they’ve provided me with many, many hours of fun since.</p>
<p>Auditing a course every semester.</p>
<p>mathmom, my D discovered her passion as a result of a freshman seminar this year. What a huge difference it has made in her life! She is now looking at what she WANTS to do in life, and she will be able to order her college courses to fulfill that passion. What a wonderful thing.</p>
<p>As for me, the best decision I made was to keep plugging away even though I was academically overwhelmed at first. I figured out how to study, learned how to learn, and ended up balancing my classwork & social life. I feel that I have been able to handle the demands in my adult life because of the balancing skills I learned in college.</p>
<p>The very best thing I did in college, though, was co-op. Work experience while still in college is extremely helpful!</p>
<p>My most important choice actually took place in my senior year in high school.</p>
<p>I took a chance by choosing a selective and demanding college (Cornell, as many of you know) even though I came from an inferior high school and was the first person in my family to go to college. I was extremely worried that I would be grossly underprepared for college work, but in fact it turned out fine.</p>
<p>I can’t apply this choice to my own kids’ situations. They have college-educated parents, and they both attended very good high schools. The idea of being worried about being inadequately prepared for college is completely outside their experience.</p>
<p>Transferring after my freshman year. The school was way too small, was totally Greek (I didn’t realize how significant that was), and didn’t really have any courses of study I was interested in. And yes…if my kids asked, I would tell them it’s ok to transfer.</p>
<p>Getting to know the professors. I was intimidated my freshman year, sat in the back and would have fainted if any of them ever called on me but realized my grades went WAY up when I sat in the front row and spoke to them during office hours.</p>
<p>I did that too at U of MN. I initiated discussion in classes with 800 students. Anyone can do this.</p>
<p>Going abroad as a junior.</p>
<p>Getting a job (actually, 3 jobs) my senior year when I was tired of the social/Greek thing and my courses were getting progressively easier. It filled a lot of hours, gave me some good skills, and put a lot of money in my bank account. And at that point in my college career, it didn’t affect my grades one iota.</p>
<p>As silly as this might seem to those of you who were more aware and focused going into school than I was at a non-flagship State U.</p>
<p>Go to class. Go if you are tired, Go if you are inprepared, go if you are hungover. Go if you think the class is easy and teacher says it is ok to miss as much as you want. Go if it is the day before thanksgiving and you want to get a jump on travel</p>
<p>I generally didnt miss classes, and it served me well. For one you (or someone ) is paying for the class and it is the most important thing in grading well in classes</p>
<p>I am sure more sage advice will follow</p>
<p>Working behind a bar. I was shy. Average student in a good business program. Back before internships were readily available and assumed to be a part of the education process. Serving opened a whole new world to me. I was an air headed blonde with shyness issues. I learned how to open up to the public, how to handle people, how to handle situations. Nowadays, I’m not sure it would be the politically correct path, but for me it worked out. When I got my first professional job post college, my boss told me he liked that fact that he liked my work “experience”. (The only other jobs I’d had were as a lifeguard at a pool and a housecleaner.) One thing I know- I knew how to talk to people.</p>
<p>Working through the panic that set in freshman year that most of my other classmates were terrific high school students and pretty smart; completing most of the work for the semester in the first 6 weeks so that I knew I could handle the work; and working hard throughout. [I’d recommend this – develop the confidence you can do the work].</p>
<p>Asking for a job as a freshman in the department I was ended up majoring in. [Not sure I would recommend this, although it did give me a feeling of independence].</p>
<p>Asking a famous professor who didn’t normally work with undergraduates to hire me as an RA and be my senior thesis advisor. This required tons of work as I had to figure out each week why a brilliant guy might say the apparently disconnected things he said in the first half of the week and having made a guess, do something in that direction in the second half of the week. This paid off handsomely as I published the thesis in the best journal in the field and I was told that it would have been the best doctoral thesis for the previous 5 years in the department where I got my Ph.D. As a consequence, they waived requirements for me that enabled me to explore new areas that are integral to what I do as an adult. [I would definitely recommend this].</p>
<p>Making friends, a number of whom remain friends many years later. Having nice respectful, romantic relationships. Learning to swing dance. Playing hard when I had time. [I’d recommend all of these to my kids]. </p>
<p>Playing a varsity sport (though a minor one and I was a walk-on). [I don’t think I’d recommend this as neither kid is so inclined and it took a lot of time but I made a number of close and life-long friends that way].</p>
<p>I am struck at how little I probably slept as I worked very hard and graduated magna cum laude, did a strong job on my senior thesis, played a sport and had a job. What was I thinking?</p>
<p>In no particular order:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Taking software engineering. It’s why I have a good job now. And taking engineering classes in general, to complement my science classes.</p></li>
<li><p>Participating in research as an undergrad.</p></li>
<li><p>Learning, for the first time, to work with my hands: Learning to use a sewing machine, solder electronics, use power tools, and so on.</p></li>
<li><p>Getting a research internship abroad in a really cool lab.</p></li>
<li><p>Making friends and participating in lots of activities. Most of these activities, I believe, have had positive effects on my character, skills, and general development.</p></li>
<li><p>Choosing to live in the dorm that I did, on the hall that I did. It was a good place for me to grow, and the friends that I made are lasting. Along similar lines, choosing to take the dorm and hall rush process seriously - visit as many places as I could, make sincere efforts to learn about those living groups even if they didn’t initially seem like they’d be my thing, and not settle for adequate when I could have something amazing (the lazy people who stay wherever they were temped for Orientation because they don’t want to make the effort or move their stuff drive me crazy, because they’re missing out and taking spots that could have gone to people who really love the place where they are).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I guess the best thing I did was to study hard and get good grades. I used my major for all of 18 months before I decided to go to law school. I think those grades got me in, because my LSAT score was pretty average.</p>
<p>Studying a lot sounds like a no-brainer, but all of my friends had MUCH easier majors than I did, so I was doing things like memorizing the muscles in a fetal pig while they were practicing making beard stubble for Makeup Class. It took a lot of self descipline to study when no one else seemed to be studying.</p>
<p>great question …</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Picking a college that was a reach for me and would provide a challenge</p></li>
<li><p>Picking a college on fit and what felt like the place I would have the best experience over four years … and not focussing on the rank of the schools</p></li>
<li><p>Picking a major that I excited me intellectually even though I wasn’t sure where it would lead professionally (I picked a major I had never heard of when I started school)</p></li>
<li><p>Deciding to start taking courses that were interesting but way out of my comfort zone (I was the lone engineering major in an advanced Greek History class for example) and not worrying about the grade implications (B grade upper limit)</p></li>
<li><p>Developing a balance between academics and social life so I could excel at both</p></li>
<li><p>Looking at my classmates and deciding which life style choices worked for me … and finding friends to hang with that shared these life style choices.</p></li>
<li><p>Learning how to be a true friend and a true significant other … and hopefully this made me a better son and brother also.</p></li>
<li><p>Maturing and learning when to trust my inner voice and when I needed to “defy authority” because to not to would be dishonest with my self and to learn I needed to accept the consequences of these choices without major complaints. Some of the tougher times with my parents occured during college as this is the time when I responded to their rules and requests and sometimes not in the manner that would like and then I (and they) had to deal wth the consquences. We had disagreemnets about church and proper travel arrangements with my girlfriends, for example, … I had to decide if these issues were important enough to me to “break my parents rules”; and for me they were. In many ways these situations were pivotal on my road to becoming who I am now and being true to my future.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>*Taking two years off before applying/attending.</p>
<p>*Auditioning for groups and shows I was sure I had no prayer of getting into (I did).</p>
<p>*Taking Japanese, or whatever scary, difficult subject you’ve been curious about your whole life.</p>