I’ll be honest, after my freshman year – which was awesome – I didn’t love my college experience. I didn’t hate it, but there are definitely a lot of things I wish I could change about that time. While I can’t go back and change the past, I can take what I’ve learned from the choices I made and hopefully use that to help someone else enjoy their own college experience a bit more.
Whether you are reading this as a soon-to-be freshman excited about this new adventure, or a senior hoping to finish your college years strong, I hope that you find these tips helpful as you make the absolute most of the time and potential in front of you.
Here are 5 things I would do differently if I could do college over again.
5 Things I Would Change If I Could Do College Again
1. Don’t let fear limit choices when considering schools
Now, I want to start this one by saying that I don’t necessarily regret the choice of school I made. For the most part, I loved my school. It was small enough that I wasn’t just a number or name on a roster, it was a perfect not-too-close-not-too-far distance from my family, it had an amazing teacher education program, and the campus was like going to school in a park. I felt comfortable there.
However, now that I am out of school and have grown so much, I do wonder sometimes what my experience would have been like if I hadn’t limited my choices so much when it came to looking for schools. I refused to even consider schools that were on the larger side, or farther than a few hours away from my hometown. At the time, my reasoning was that I knew myself and knew that “small” and “close” were what would be best for me. Being honest with myself now though… I know that fear of stepping out of my comfort zone played a huge role in that decision.
If you are looking for schools now, or considering transferring, don’t let fear of the unknown dictate your choices. College is about getting a degree, yes, but it’s also about growing as a person, and that’s not something that can be easily done from inside your comfort zone.
2. Take advantage of the “free” stuff more often
It doesn’t matter where you go or how many scholarships you have, college costs a ton of money. Don’t let that money go to waste. When I was a freshman, I did a good job taking advantage of the free events and activities on campus and had a lot of fun doing it, but the next few years I didn’t participate in those things as much.
Part of it was that my friends didn’t usually want to go and I was too afraid to go on my own. I wish that I had just been brave and done it. Not only could I have potentially met more people and made more friends, but a good chunk of my tuition went into those events. As a post-college young adult, it is a lot harder to find similar activities and events for “free.” My advice is to use it while you’ve got it!
This also applies to fitness centers and classes. Take advantage of the gym while you don’t have to pay a membership fee!
3. Make more friends
Again, I have to start this one by stating for the record that I LOVED my college friends, especially in our freshman year, and I wouldn’t change that time with them for anything. We were an odd mix, a bit like the breakfast club, with a significantly cringier nickname, but we made it work and had so much fun together.
Part of me thought I was so lucky to have found that group that I didn’t even really need any more friends. I even wrote a whole post on my first attempt at a blog going on and on about how awesome they were and how people who say freshman orientation friends don’t last clearly just didn’t find the right group.
But a huge part of college is growing and changing, and that means that the friends you have freshman year aren’t always going to be the same friends you have, or need, in the years to come.
When that time came for me, and the friendships I had were no longer healthy for any of us, I felt like there was nowhere left to turn. I thought that it was too late and I was too awkward to turn class acquaintances into out of class friends, and as a result, my social life and mental health took a nosedive.
If I could go back and do it all again, I would make myself branch out more, join more than one club, turn those class acquaintances into actual friends, and not be so afraid to do things on my own. I would spend more time with the people I didn’t already live with, or live with people I didn’t already spend all of my time with. Balance is important in friendship, as it is in all areas of life, and there is no such thing as too many friends!
4. Take more “just for fun” classes
I started school with a double major in education and psychology, and ended up adding a minor in English literature, so there was no shortage of classes for me to take. At the time, I had a very clear image in my mind of what path I was going to take in life and exactly what classes I would need to get there.
Now that I am at a different point in my life and starting to consider possibilities outside of that original plan, I sometimes wish I would have taken some more “just for fun” classes outside of my majors to expand my horizons and explore different interests.
One of the best things about college is getting to (for the most part) have freedom over your schedule. Take advantage of that! Explore the things you are interested in. You never know what kind of doors might open for you if you do.
The good news is, there is also no shortage of information in the world, and it is never too late to start learning new things, so I didn’t totally miss the boat on that one!
5. Make my dorm a study free zone
I had a dream a few weeks ago that I went back to my school and discovered an entire section of the library that I had never known existed before. It probably wasn’t that far from being a real possibility.
I used the library and other study spots all throughout my 5 years in college/grad school, but did most of my work in my own room. While I was there I thought it worked, but now that I’m a bit more removed I can see that it wasn’t always the best situation for me. I even wrote about it in another college tips post a few years ago.
Spending so much time studying and working in my room turned it from a restful spot where I could relax and hang out with my friends, to just another study space. Separating school/work and life has always been challenging for me, and I sometimes wonder if setting that hard boundary for myself in college would have helped me at all post-college.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope that even one of these lessons learned will help you enjoy your own college experience to the fullest! It can be challenging, but it really is an exciting time and can be so rewarding if you keep the right things in mind.
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