Quote:
Originally Posted by Stargirl  In the spirit of Steve's entry "10 Tips for College Students", what would college students/graduates advise us incoming freshman/future college students?
Some general areas for advise
1) choosing classes and major
2) dorm life
3) time management
4) how to get to know the profs
5) getting a job?
6) realizations after graduating
7) tips for getting good recs, getting into grad school, getting a good job
Any advice would be appreciated  . |
1) Advice for classes and majors depends on what school you're attending, and even what part of the world it's in. A liberal-arts school in the states is very different from a public school in, say, France.
But I can offer a little knowledge of liberal arts and public universities in the USA.
First, I'd suggest choosing a major that interests you. Don't worry about the job market or any of that stuff. Just find something that you'll be passionate about. It makes the college experience incredibly enjoyable and challenging.
Secondly, most advice or intuition about how grad schools or the job market will respond to your major are contradictory! Intuitively, you'd think that a geology undergraduate degree will look most impressive to a graduate program in geology, right? Not necessarily. I know of geology graduate programs that will NOT accept undergraduate geology degrees, or at least give little preference to them. Why? Because undergraduate geology degrees have the reputation of being one of the easier sciences. These grad programs in geology will often prefer physics students, chemistry students, etc.
Businesses or business grad school programs sometimes are more impressed with a math or physics degree than a business degree.
In other words, don't take your own intuition or even well-meaning advice too seriously; there are way too many surprises and contradictions. So you may as well just go with the major you're most passionate in learning. You'll excel more anyway.
In terms of classes, my only advice is this: don't get too strung-up over having a specific schedule. You'll eventually face the hell that is known as scheduling conflicts. You probably won't take all the classes you want, and you'll take a few that you never expected to take. But keep in mind that some classes that you were unwillingly forced to take may turn out to be surprisingly good. Likewise, high expectations for a class are often met with disappointment. Just don't stress too much over class selection, and be comfortable with the fact that fate will do much of the decision making for you.
2) Dorm life. Don't obsess over getting a single. The privacy is great, especially for all the studying you think you'll do, but shared rooms turn out to be more memorable and surprisingly manageable if you have the right attitude.
3) Time management. Keep yourself busy. The more crowded your schedule, the more efficient your time management. A really light workload may lead to laziness that is difficult to overcome.
4) Get to know professors by going to office hours. Or do research with them if you're in the sciences. Pretty simple I guess.
5) If you can get an on-campus job, then get it. Again, a crowded schedule will force you to get ************ done.