
Ask HN: What would you do differently if you could go back to college again? - madiator
If you could go back in time and say started college all over again. What would be a few things that you would do different from what you had done before? Do you repent you did not do something in particular?
Would you instead:<p>* take more classes related to your program?<p>* take more classes outside your program, say in art, design, literature etc. (assuming you had money/scholarship/or you could sneak into the class)<p>* make lot more contacts<p>* sleep less<p>* or you wish you had slept more?<p>Thanks HN!
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pg
I would spend a lot more time deciding what classes to take, and take those
I'd learn the most from. The experience of the preceding 14 or so years had
made me passive, because (a) classes didn't vary much and (b) I had little
choice about which to take. That changed completely in college but I didn't
adapt quickly enough.

I used to pick classes based on nothing more than the descriptions in the
course catalog. Which is crazy considering the extent to which the classes you
take define your life for that whole semester. Only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the
classes I took were worthwhile. I'm sure I could have picked better if I did
some actual research about them.

I wouldn't have taken so many philosophy classes
(<http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html>). What instead? More history. That's
a good subject to learn from professors. More math. I would have learned Latin
or Greek instead of Arabic.

~~~
unalone
I'm curious: why Latin or Greek instead of Arabic? Is it that you think they'd
be more useful (for understanding etymology/reading original texts)? Is it
something about how the languages function? Simple personal bias?

~~~
bartonfink
As a Latin major in college (one thing I would have changed), I think it's a
far more useful skill than people let on. Latin in particular forces you to
think about grammar in a more rigorous way than English does, and in doing so,
it helps you ensure that you say exactly what you mean. Latin is a highly
inflected language, meaning that individual words carry almost all of the
grammatical information necessary to parse a sentence. Large classes of
ambiguity that exist in English are simply impossible in Latin because of
this. I've compared Latin to statically typed languages in the past, and I
think it's an apt comparison.

You have to think through what you say before you begin, because otherwise
it's nearly impossible to make a grammatically correct sentence if you need to
switch your phrasing. This practice has the side benefit of making sure that
what you're trying to say actually makes sense. Put another way, clarity of
grammar leads to clarity of thought. Near fluency in Latin has changed the way
I speak English for the better, primarily for this reason.

I do not know Arabic, but as I said, I think that knowing Latin has helped me
tremendously even though I can no longer speak it or actively use it.

~~~
byoung2
I studied Latin for 2 years in high school, and I found it tremendously
helpful, not only in helping me do well on the verbal section of the SAT (760
to match my 760 math), but also when dissecting the meanings as an English
major in college. Latin also came in handy when I learned Spanish (and later
Italian and a little Catalan). I can see where PG is coming from, as I also
studied Japanese, which has nothing in common with the other languages I've
studied, and I'm convinced that it lives in a separate area of my brain.

~~~
unalone
This is a derail from my initial question, but I'm curious: would you say that
studying Japanese, which is so different from the other things you know, has
had an impact on how you think or how you look at the world? Or does it feel
like learning Japanese was overall less useful than studying Latin?

~~~
byoung2
If I had it to do over again, I would still have studied Japanese, because
speaking a language is the only true way to connect with a country's culture.
Having been to Japan twice and being able to speak the language gave me a
perspective that the typical gaijin doesn't get. Even though studying Japanese
didn't help me learn other languages in the same way Latin lead to Spanish and
Italian, it helped me understand Japanese culture better.

------
brianl
Take minimum requirements for my major.

Take more interesting classes (Evil & Decadence in Literature), less classes
that I thought would help my career (Management in Engineering).

Hang out with more people who are interesting. Spend less time with people who
are just fun w/o much substance. Don't waste effort on being friends with
assholes because they seem cool.

Don't fall behind coursework.

Waste less time with stuff I cannot really remember: watching sports, TV,
lectures by professors who cannot teach, video games, ...

Take more road trips.

Talk to more girls.

Enjoy the experience with a good attitude.

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b3b0p
Be more social. Meet more people. Join clubs. Go to some parties. Not study so
much. Be less serious. Take more risks. Join some intramural activities.

Basically everything I didn't do during college that I probably should have.

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LongTimeLurker
Make more use of free equipment such as: making films with free film, computer
animation, and editing equipment.

Have more sex with random strangers.

Drop acid.

------
mattm
I probably would not go to college again and would just study on my own or
take shorter programs (ie. 2-year degree)

If I did go again, this is what I would change:

While in college, after the first year, I spent more of my time working on
extracurricular activities than on classwork. The classwork was mostly boring
and not very practical while I learned much more on the extracurricular stuff.
I would still do that.

I did take some classes not related to Comp Sci and don't think they really
helped and were just a waste of money.

I left college with $35k in student loan debt and would try to avoid debt or
take on much less.

I would have gotten part-time/summer work related to programming instead of
irrelevant part-time jobs.

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justin
I would have worked on being less shy earlier and cultivating more groups of
more diverse friends.

I would have studied Computer Science instead of Physics & Philosophy, which I
don't really apply to anything I'm doing today.

I would have taken more advantage of the resources available to students: art
programs, recording studios, the school radio station.

I already took the bare minimum classes -- and I would again.

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bartonfink
I turned down a spot at an Ivy league school to go to another top-25 ranked
school because they offered a lot of scholarship money. I would not have done
that.

I would not have majored in Latin, or at least I would have considered
majoring in something else. I majored in Latin because it was an extremely
short major because I had taken 4 college courses in high school. I figured
that would leave me with plenty of time to find something else worth studying,
but I hadn't made it to CS before graduation time came. That decision forced
roughly 4 years of extra work to "catch up" to where I would have been had I
majored in CS originally.

I spent far too much time and energy trying to answer ?'s of religion that
ultimately didn't get me anywhere. I wasted time oscillating between atheism
and various flavors of Christianity, and in doing so ate up a lot of energy
that ultimately could have been used for more fruitful pursuits.

EDIT - I see people are listing things they would have done identically as
well. I figured I'd add this.

Assuming I went to the same college, I would not have changed my circles of
friends significantly. I was in a dry fraternity (Lambda Chi Alpha at Wake
Forest if anyone cares to know), and we were the top academic fraternity by a
long shot for my entire tenure there. The people I met there were, by and
large, the most fascinating people I've ever met. From this group, I know a
Marshall scholar, a professional rapper, three priests of wildly differing
viewpoints, several doctors and a professional poker player who netted 6
figures a year for 3 years. They were all people who weren't interested in the
typical fraternity scene and who were intensely interested in the world around
them and trying to make the most out of it, whereas the typical fraternity
student isn't looking beyond their next chance to get laid. They ALMOST make
up for my poor choice to take a scholarship instead of going to a school
someone might have heard of.

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ja27
Do whatever it takes to get out sooner. Every year in school costs not just
tuition, etc. but lost potential income.

Live on as little as possible and avoid student loans as much as possible. I
avoided loans until I was married and in grad school, but then I started
living like I was already working, rather than living like a starving student.

Travel more - I had a great nearly free outdoor recreation program and only
went on one adventure trip.

Stay in touch with people after graduation. I've finally reconnected to a lot
thanks to Facebook and LinkedIn but there were a lot of years where I lost
track of a lot of people.

When I was in school, it wasn't too realistic to start a side business but
today there's no reason a CS student couldn't build a web or mobile app or do
affiliate blogging for cash.

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draz
major in math (vs. cs), take less classes (so i could work on my ideas),
intern at start ups, study abroad (semester or 2) at a place I'd never even
consider living in (because once you graduate, it probably ain't happening,
for various reasons. In college, you still have a support system)

what i'd do the same: hang out almost exclusively with people outside my
major. My college friends are writers, traders, architects, etc, and I've
learned immensely from them during college, and afterwards.

~~~
kloncks
As someone who considered that, I wonder what your reasoning is? Math not CS.

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plamb
I would have double majored or at least minored in computer science to go
along with my analytic philosophy degree

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pavel_lishin
Drink more, code more, go to class less.

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pasbesoin
I would have lived in quiet hall, despite the supposed social hindrance or
(for some people) stigma. I need peace and quiet to concentrate, at which
point I'm MUCH more efficient. One can always walk to another venue, when one
is in the mood for louder socialization or a party.

I would have paid zero attention to "expert" opinions about what one "should"
do. 'We don't have a geology program; just take chemistry and go into geology
in grad school.' [1]

Not nice people aren't nice. Trust your intuition.

Related to all this, something that came up last night: When something isn't
working, walk away (as soon as you reasonably can). Don't continue to support
it (e.g. that nasty person) by virtue of your continued efforts.

Some of this is pretty general. But if you aren't applying it by the time
you're in college, it's high time to learn it (and make your college
experience a lot better).

1\. P.S. I have a friend who was/is one of the smartest people I know. Yet in
college his grades were lackluster and he was always getting involved in crazy
personal projects, some illegal (but basically non-harmful).

He now in an engineer at CERN. He was smart, and he followed his passions.

------
hendrix
There is quite a bit I would love to change about college including:

 _Not attending right out of HS, and instead working at a customer-service
intensive job to increase my social skills and learn the value of money. There
are too many students living off of loans, and believing that college is a 4
year vacation.

_ Not wasting so much time in college. 4-5 years is a humungous time
investment. Some places you can get a BA/MS in almost the same time.

 _I would have completed an AS in math or physics first, and then tried to get
into berkley/caltech/ivy.

_ Spending too much time talking about politics/religion/philosophy with the
liberal arts kids.

 _Majoring in molecular biology rather than math/physics & minor in molecular
biology. I have learned programming on my own time.

_Trying to do a start-up the summer before I started the hardest classes.

*Not joining a (relatively sane) fraternity.

Now I am attempting to go from Life Sciences -> mathematical biology vs
physics/math -> mathematical biology.

