Tell Saku bout College ;D

S

Sakura

Guest
Original poster

gif.gif

[DASH="YELLOW"]Your College Experience [/DASH]

Okay :3 So I'm sorta kinda maybe freaking out x3
Come September, I'm going to be a highschool senior. I have no clue what I want to be or what I want to major in (although I am trying to figure something out) & I'm certain that I'm going to have write essays and listen to my conseulors ramble about what I should do to be in pharmacy (they make you pick SOMETHING, and my dad was like sure, pharmacy then). In any case, I'm sure I'm not going into medicine. (Yes I know Razumatazzuniichan is a doctor xD, ironic, huh?) It's nothing personal, I just don't think it will ever interest me.


ANYWAYS. MOVING ON.

Tell me what you did senior year of highschool, if you were already decided on a career or major, if you had a hard time choosing, how you went about the crazy admissions process, the college essays, the scholarships, the financial aid, any advice, anything really ;O

I'm sure anything you have to say will be helpful to me :P



Your College Experiences, Please & Thank you :D

 
I had NO CLUE what I wanted to do my senior year in high school. I actually spent the entire year living it up before I graduated. It wasn't until about a year after high school that I was lucky enough to find what I loved to do, and contrary to popular belief in my family, it had NOTHING to do with computers!

I decided to move back home from Atlanta to get my Associate's in Veterinary Technology, and anyone that has spoken with me EVER knows that I LOVE talking about it, mostly because I LOVED school. Yeah, high school was great and fun and all, but you have so many other people with you with so many different interests, sometimes it's hard to find people who like the same things that you do career-wise. I got into the program and it DID take me a while, but I came out of my shell like nothing anyone in my family had ever seen before.

As the year continued, the class got smaller. We started with about 30 students in the class, but by the end of the second quarter we were down to about ten. By the time the program was halfway over, I was participating in every class and club event, if something that had to do with the program was going down, you better believe I was there before it started and after it ended, they had to kick me out of the classrooms every night because I didn't want to leave. By the time we graduated this past June, I had found my twin sister, two new moms in my teachers, and a family. It was the best experience and the best two years of my life thus far. I can now do things I never thought I would be doing, and I know stuff that I thought I was too dumb to remember. All the confidence I have in my skills and in myself came from those two years of college!

As far as financial aid, I had to settle at first for mooching from the state. My first three quarters were paid for by the HOPE grant. It's a grant that, from what I understood, would be given to me up to a certain number of hours, and because I was going to a technical college, I didn't have to have a certain grade point average. Which was nice, because I was an idiot in high school. xD My advice on that is to DEFINITELY look into ANY scholarship you can find. A lot of them require essays, but knowing what I do about you, I think you would have no problem with it. You would be amazed at the number of small unknown scholarships that are out there.

We really didn't have essays, most of our grades were earned with our skills, competencies, and performing certain procedures. That being said, the tests were AWFUL. I think my shortest test was 16 pages. BUT, the good part of that is that you learn from your mistakes, and it helps you to remember later. ;) We did a lot of powerpoint presentations too, and as far as that goes, my advice is to go ahead and start on it when you learn about it. Makes things a LOT easier. :D

My biggest advice to you from experience would be to try not to get overly nervous about anything. I used to be HORRIBLE at dwelling on things that happened that I could have done differently, stuff like that, but just roll with the punches and everything will go GREAT for you. Work hard. Nothing is impossible! ^__^

It sounds a little dramatic, but it's completely true! If you're lucky enough to find exactly what you want to do, college will be a breeze and full of awesome times!
 
WHAT A COINCIDENCE! *just graduated from college in May*

Financial aide should be like, THE FIRST thing you take care of, after housing. SRSLY. Apply for EVERY and ALL scholarships you can, even if you don't need the money. You never know when something may come up! Sometimes some scholarships don't get very many good applicants or any applicants at all and the money just sits there! You'll certainly be putting it to use so you may as well apply!

I'm not sure about your housing situation, i.e., living on campus, at home, etc. If it's on campus, it tends to fill up fast, so get in that application! If you're on campus as well, send an email to your roomie to say hi...or something. I just asked mine if they were allergic to anything. We also ended up setting up a buddy system with our computer & printer. My printer was giving out but hers was new & used the same kind of ink & I had spare ink...so yeah.

Trying to remember more important things...

But if anything, this could possibly be some of the most fun you've ever had, and also the most stressful...
 
It's pretty much true what everyone says. College is the best experience of your life/A BIG EFFING WASTE OF TIME.


So yeah, no big deal.
 
Never went, I personally hate the school atmosphere, as it makes people a level of retarded that makes me want to stab them.
 
College can be fun.

Senior year of high school... just try to get everything done early. Start nowww (even before the school year starts). Pick like eight schools you want to apply to, look at their average GPAs and SAT scores to see how well you stack up (US News College Rankings, Princeton Review, College Board, are good places to start). Aim high: maybe three "Reach" schools, three "Good Fit" schools, and a couple of "Safe" schools. Read about them, look at their websites, try to imagine yourself there, their cities/towns, their particular academic programs, etc. Pick your favorite reach/dream school and get ready to apply to it through "Early Decision," which can really help your chances. This will mean having everything done in the next couple of months (deadline is usually in October). (I was lucky and got into my top choice school through Early Decision... only had to fill out one application! :D) Ask for your recommendation letters ASAP (like, first week of school) from junior-year teachers whom you connected with and who liked you. Look at your applications to get an idea of what kind of essays you'll need to write, and start writing them, like, now. You want to write the essay one day, and then come back to it, reread it over and over and touch it up over several days. (Bad idea: I wrote mine on the last possible day and hit send on my app just about an hour before it was due). Try to show how interesting, creative, unusual, entertaining, and intelligent you are on your essay. (And be sure to answer the question in the essay prompt.) The point of the essay is to make you stick out from the general stack of applicants.

Don't be afraid to go somewhere far away from home, if you want that... I did, and I think it was the best decision I ever made. Independence can be really liberating and empowering.

Apply for financial aid on your applications... you'll need to ask your parents for a bunch of papers on this, or they will handle that part of the app themselves. As for outside scholarships, it *might* be worth looking around a little on websites like Fastweb.com, but the awards tend to be kind of small in comparison with the time and effort you have to devote to them. Unless you qualify for big scholarships like Gates Millennium, I personally wouldn't spend too much time on outside scholarships... just be sure your financial aid app, FAFSA, etc. are all in order, ahead of time.

On academics: don't let your parents determine your future... this is your life. Explore, have fun, take electives in all different fields that interest you... You have plenty of time before you have to commit to a major. Most colleges will require a couple years of general education/foundation/core classes before you get locked into a major. And even once you have a major, it's not necessarily a life-altering thing (talking about the US here): I graduated last year with a BA in Economics and Political Science, ended up working with a law firm, might do Peace Corps next year, and after that, I'm still undecided on whether I want to become a policy analyst, a paramedic or an electrical engineer. It's never too late to change what you wanna do with your life.

College life: if you're shy and averse to introducing yourself to new people (I am), you should make an effort to force yourself into social situations (I didn't). Join clubs, go to events, walk up to and chat with people at random, anywhere, at any time. They won't mind. Note: During orientation, everyone is freaking out and acting irrational/unlike themselves, so don't be surprised if the people you meet during that first week or so don't necessarily end up being who you thought they were/don't end up being your long-term friends (not that they can't be). Find people you REALLY LIKE hanging out with, and don't settle for less. The better friends come from places of common interest like classes, clubs, activities, your dormitory/residence hall, etc.

PM me any time with questions. I'd be glad to help.

Good luck, and keep us updated! :kawaii:
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
Recommendation letters! Yes. It's a good idea to get those for both your applications and your scholarship apps as well. I didn't think I'd really need them but DAYUM later on they sure did come in handy. If I had the foresight I would have asked my teachers to do both one for my college app and a general one for scholarship apps. You can reuse the general ones later on during your other semesters. A lot of times teachers will be flattered that you'd think of them enough to ask them for letters, so it really isn't that hard to ask, but the "nicest" teachers will probably get flooded with requests, so be sure to ask early.

Our high school actually made us get all our stuff done in our junior year. Part of our graduation requirements was to have a portfolio ready with our resume, transcripts & recommendation apps. You should put together something like that as well, just so that you can have everything in one place.
 
I wonder if you're the same Saku who I remember for MW/SpaceK. Oh man, all the old crowd are all growing up and having babies and going to college! *tear* Hopefully not in that exact order...

Undergraduate college was a great growing and learning experience for me. It really taught me my own limits and how to get along more or less on my own. I didn't really know where I wanted to go until I'd almost graduated HS, and then I just picked the prettiest campus. BAD IDEA. It turns out that the campus was too large for me and wasn't centrally enough located. The main pasttime was cows. This Sable prefers pasttimes that include comic book shops and a lot of good food. Cows don't usually feature in my plans, unless they are dead and deliciously cooked.

So I transferred to another college, which turned out to be a better fit. I changed majors once, from prepharm to undeclared to psych, and graduated with a BS (harhar) in the aforementioned psychology. I knew tons of people who changed more, though. My roommate changed majors almost once a year. Then when I was getting ready to graduate, I decided that I didn't really want to do psychology as a career, applied to a completely different master's program, got in, and moved.

For now, don't worry about things too much. If you don't know what you want to do, try to pick a good liberal arts college with some strong programs in things you MIGHT be interested in. Get on the letter of recommendation thing, since your teachers will be busy, and make a single, strong essay that you can tweak to fit a lot of apps. Makes your work so much easier.

Don't worry too much about getting in or not, either. Some of the people in my classes definitely worried too much about getting into somewhere prestigious rather than somewhere that fit well. Make sure to have one or two backup schools and do a lot of visiting (stay for a few nights if you can) before you make any decisions or ask your parents to cut any checks.

I do have a tip, though. When applying, think of something you MIGHT want to do and go with that for the application process. Hopefully this will be something you're strong in. You're more likely to get scholarship offers like that, for as long as you're in the program. At the very least you'll get money for one semester while you get your footing and figure out if you like the subject.
 
*Points at what AMP said*

ASIDE FROM THAT. . .

I knew what I wanted to do before I graduated highschool, which is to be a voice actor. . . but I knew that I needed to get ze acting chops before I really tried to pursue it so I've been going to the nearest University for 3 years now & am about to enter mah senior year as a Theater Performance Major. College/University can get stressful when you end up with a Professor you don't like the style of at all. I mean this in all seriousness when I say two Professors can teach THE EXACT SAME COURSE in two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WAYS.

Best example I have:

Body Disciplines- Physical training for the actor to learn exercises to stay limber & in Shape

MY CLASS: Taught by a Proff from the dance department. Turned into a watered down version of his "Intro to Jazz" class

Other people: Some got taught by this Asian lady AND SHE TAUGHT THEM SUZUKI AND NEAT EASTERN THEATER TECHNIQUES.


So basically try to find out about a Professor if you can before signing up for a class.

Luckily unlike high school there is an add/drop week that can really save your bacon from a horrible class.


OTHER THAN THAT I HOPE YOU HAVE FUN.

AND STAY AWAY FROM BOOZE.
 
I had been editing videos (as a hobby) since 2002. I Graduated highschool a semester early in the end of 2005. All through school, I hated it. I wanted nothing more than to just drop out and get my GED. But my parents pushed me through to the end and it wasn't me being smart that I graduated early- it was just clever working of the system on my behalf (I did less work than everyone else).

I had no desire to go to college because I absolutely hated school and thought College would be the same way. My parents were being asshats and trying to force college on me, which made me associate even more negative things with it. I was convinced that I knew everything there was to know about editing video and that my sheer awesomeness would get me a job doing it, not any worthless sheet of paper a degree).

I forget exactly what turned out to be my epiphany moment, but at some point right around the time I was supposed to graduate I realized I wasn't nearly as awesome as I thought I was at editing and I probably needed someone to show me the ropes. What better then college? All the drama of my parents going "LOL WE WERE RIGHT YOU WAS WRONG" aside, I eventually ended up in a private art school in florida.

I was introduced to new concepts, but because I knew so much about editing (LOL HURRHURR) I didn't take the classes seriously and slacked through all of them. I tested out of Photoshop, I skipped a lot of other classes. I know that for my editing 101 class I showed up twice- Once the first day and realized it was a waste of time, and then on the last day to take my midterm and final and pass with a B (Am I that good or was the class that easy? I'll never know).

I have Depression and the sheer amount of time these classes were taking and the huge disappointment it was that I could get away with the shit I was pulling and still pass made me lose all hope in the amount of tuition (Which was NEEDLESSLY HIGH thank god I wasn't paying it). All things considered it was a worthwhile experience but nothing close to what I would call useful.

I really can't speak much for the classes in College since I hardly ever showed up, but what I can tell you about is the living conditions. They sucked. Hardcore. I'm in the military now and while our spaces our significantly physically smaller, I MUCH prefer it to the shitty conditions I had in college.
We had a non-traditional campus so instead of dorms we had 2 bedroom apartments that housed 4 people. They did not have any sort of survey process at all, they shoved random people together and hope it worked out. The housing was run by a private company separate from the college and they were money grubbing fools, constantly losing financial aid checks (so people had to pay them TWICE) and never listening to very viable housing complaints.

Most of my roommates could very accurately fit the "roommate from hell" description and then some. There was one point (by a combination of my being poor and shitty roommates) that I was LITERALLY starving to death. I had ONE bowl of ramen every 2 days. I have irreparable damage to my stomach from that and I lost 15 pounds. It's weight I've been struggling to make back since my graduation in 2008 and haven't ever been able to accomplish (or in the rare cases I do make it back, it doesn't stay).

College was both the shittiest days of my life and the best. I hated my parents at the time so being away from them finally gave me the opportunity to grow and be MYSELF. My parents were the overbearing helicopter type and I never got any sense of accomplishment when I was around them. Because of that, my college days were also filled with a lot of failure. I didn't know how to do laundry, drive, cook, anything. I view college moreso as a "coming into adulthood" thing than an education experience.

I don't know what exactly you're supposed to pull from this, but I hope it was at least insightful.