Hey everyone! I'm sure that quite a handful of people on WarLight are going to be attending college next year. Where are you all going, and if you're going to be a freshman like me, what do you think it will be like? If you have already been attending college, what is it like, and do you have any tips for us newbies?

I'm going to be attending UC Davis next year, it's in a small city near Sacramento. I applied for Mechanical Engineering but I want to change that to Computer Science. I'm just hoping that college isn't as stressful as I hear it out to be.

prepare for gender studies class.

Yo, good luck! I'm 5/8 of the way through a CompE degree, so all I've gotta say is don't worry about it. College is a lot harder than high school for sure, but you'll adapt to manage. Just remember that as long as you keep working on something you're not quite able to do perfectly, you're actually learning how to do it better and better (even if you don't think you're making any progress) just by the nature of how brains work.

Explore, pursue your passions, and remember what you're in there for :) There might be pain (might not- it's different for everybody and it's hard to predict going in) but it'll be worth it in the end. Remember that you're free to pursue any one of your dreams- if you want to do X, just go out and do it (and if you can't just yet, start working through whatever's preventing you from doing so). Setbacks and restrictions aren't life's way of telling you that you can't do something; it's just life asking you whether you want it badly enough.

So good luck, don't sweat it, and it'll go way faster than you'll expect. Oh, and enjoy the hell out of your last real summer!

An Iowa State University Student, I have had my share of good times and bad times. I know that for me being several hours away from home gives a degree of autonomy over my life, however, it can be lonely here. I have gone through easy and rough times. The key is to become stronger through each.

One tip I can provide you: College, I have learned, is about adjustment. If you want to do well, and get good grades, being able to change what you do at the turn of a dime is essential. Odds are, if it didn't work the first time, it won't work the second. So, be aware that you will definitely have to be constantly changing to meet the vigorous demands coursework provides.

Finally, have fun. If you do it right, college will be the most enlightening and enjoyable experience possible. Do it wrong, and you could find yourself waking up in a strange bedroom, a study area, or in the hospital with no idea how you got there.

Edited 3/29/2017 04:48:02

Great advice everyone, and thanks!

Oh, and enjoy the hell out of your last real summer!

Oh yes, I plan to enjoy it. I'm hoping I can make it a summer that I'll remember for a long time. Thank goodness I'm unemployed so I have free time! (Wait. That's not a good thing, I need money.)

I left high school last year and am one month into Law school as an undergrad. Obviously Engineering is different as you will have practicals and I'm in Australia, but from what I'v gathered...

1) Sign on to your classes early. Not sure about your system there, but before school started, we had to log on and pick our timetable slots for lectures and tutorials. I was late to the process and ended up with one of my classes at 6-8pm and the other at 8am -11am (Yikes!).

2) Good chance your uni will have a lot of scholarships (for students of disadvantaged background etc). Best chance to look at them is now.

3) You won't be needing textbooks for some courses. It may say so on the booklist but you don't. I would go to your first lecture, find out whether your lecturer wants you to buy the textbook, before doing it. And even when doing so, there are many 2nd hand copies that will save you a lot of money.

4) Google Maps is your best friend for navigating around campus and the new area. Make sure you have 3G and you can pinpoint your location when you get lost.

5) Don't underestimate your cohort. You're in Engineering so I assumed you did decent in high school. Everyone around you graduated with similar scores, so you can no longer count on the 'dumb kids' to drag the class average down.

6) A lot of people who didn't get the course or uni they want eventually wish to transfer. Not sure if thats allowed in US. If you want to transfer you need a high GPA, and a lot of people think they should pick a 'easy' subject, to increase their chances of getting a high score. I don't like that. If you have plans to transfer, I'd suggest doing a course you could see yourself graduating in, in case you fuck up.

7) You can probably watch lectures online, but from what I'v seen, if you don't go to the lectures, you won't have the patience to sit through the entire thing. I'd also go to tutorials/classes, they force you to go through class content whereas on your own you might not have the self-discipline.

8) Timetable well. If you live far from school, see if you can fit your classes around the same time, so you can go in, do them, leave.

9) The main thing about Uni is employability. Unless you study Medicine, you will have to compete to get a job. Easier said than done, but make yourself employable.

10) Make sure you actually like the course you are doing and that its an employable course. My parents wanted me to pick Med School, and that would obviously have better/safer job prospects than Law, but I would have been an absolute trainwreck there. On the other hand, I see 27 year olds who have been at Uni for 7-8 years, doing their 3rd waffly degree I don't even remember the name of. God bless them...

Edited 3/29/2017 08:00:43

Go into engineering or something useful, otherwise don't bother. If companies see a GENDER STUDIES or a CULTURAL STUDIES on your resume into the trash it goes.

Go into engineering or something useful, otherwise don't bother. If companies see a GENDER STUDIES or a CULTURAL STUDIES on your resume into the trash it goes.

Assuming your boss is far right, which I am sure most are not...

Go into engineering or something useful, otherwise don't bother. If companies see a GENDER STUDIES or a CULTURAL STUDIES on your resume into the trash it goes.

this.

Considering going into chemistry.

What are some of the good chemistry colleges in the Northeast?

I ain't going.


Free Speech Zones


Gender Studies


Forced Tolerance.


Liberal Bias.


Seniors likely Generation Y Liberals.


FUCK that shit.

I'm just a freshman in high-school - ignore the last 5 comments (while I surely don't like leftist bias) because they are so hateful for no reason.

I am still at the phase of not knowing where to go to study (passed the "what do I do in college phase")

I have slightly above a 4.0 and want to major in computer science. My step-sister who is going to college is going to Alabama, so I thought about going to Clemson, but I don't know too much about their program.

CMU is a very good college and I know several people who plan on or currently are attending, but I feel it's almost so competitive that it would almost taint the college experience. Let me know if I'm going knyte.

Pitt is probably my top choice, mostly because I like large colleges and it's nearby. I hear that their computer science program is also very good.

If anyone has any suggestions for good colleges with good comsci programs - let me know. Thanks!

I agree that gender studies is an idiotic degree.

However, many liberal arts degrees are important and valuable, so claiming "only do a science or you'll never get a job" is just bullshit.

@Ben: Don't worry about competitive programs. Not only is their degree of competition grossly exaggerated most of the time (see: Berkeley stories about people destroying books in the library- high school senior me got thrown off by them a bit, but then I noticed that similar stories are fabricated for just about every school worth going to), but healthy competition and rigor are incredibly beneficial- I think there's a lot of value in going to a program that's at your level instead of something that's easy and doesn't quite push you to your best. At CMU, I've been surrounded most of the time by people way more talented and intelligent than me- and that's something I've benefited a ton from, personally. Never really felt like I was competing or fighting some sort of losing battle, only that I was surrounded by this incredible wealth of opportunities to learn.

The best thing about a formal education is that it combats second-order ignorance. You simply don't know the value of knowledge you don't yet have (case in point: most incoming CS freshmen at just about any school don't actually know what CS is), and so it's an uphill battle to try to learn things you should know when you're not quite sure what they are (even if you know where you want to end up, you rarely have the resources and insights to figure out good paths- so there's a big struggle there, although I think that sort of struggle is worth experiencing too). Universities are environments where you not only have experienced people (e.g., professors) supplying knowledge they think is valuable (especially if they think it's valuable and that most students don't realize/fully appreciate its value) but are also surrounded by tons of other people in shoes similar to yours, also exploring their passions and readily passing their insights onto you.

If you're doing a technical program (e.g., engineering) at a school that's good at said program and is full of people at your level who share some interests related to your program* or just other things you're passionate about, that's orders of magnitude better than going to a school that simply offers that same program (even if it's got the same courses and lab equipment). College is a great place because it offers you all these immense opportunities to chase after things you really care about- freedoms most people don't get to enjoy in high school- and challenges your ideas about the limitations of your own ability and potential. A huge part of that is the environment and the people you're surrounded by. So don't shortchange yourself because you're worried that a school is somehow too good/competitive/whatever. Forget the risks and just chase the rewards.

The biggest tragedy when it comes to college education is all these people graduating with a bunch of knowledge but not a huge change when it comes to understanding; I firmly believe that any engineering student who's found their calling will come to appreciate this ineffable beauty that defines their field, see the world in a fundamentally different, more satisfying light than they did coming in- and realize that their potential and the state of the world are both so much more unfathomably tremendous than they'd ever thought.

Don't sacrifice that for mundane and frankly trivial things like location, politics, whatever- don't go to a college where you just go through the motions. Push yourself and reap every opportunity you've worked so hard for, because you'll be so much better for it in ways you're not even equipped to appreciate going in. It won't just be a salary and employability boost over where you would've been if you'd taken the less competitive route; you'll really understand and be capable of something incredible.

* although you ought to avoid places that are full of people who're defined solely by their majors/jobs

Since I basically went 99% of the way there anyway, for CS/CE I'd strongly recommend saying yes to any one of these programs if you get in (and can afford to go there- don't swallow loans beyond your means if you're in that kind of situation), and yes I would strongly recommend turning down a school with lots of prestige/whatnot (e.g., Yale) to go to these:

- Stanford
- MIT
- Berkeley
- Carnegie Mellon
- Cornell
- Princeton

List is incomplete, but I can vouch for any of them. If you get into any of them, you're close to the cream of the crop and the last thing you'd want to do with your life is throw away that potential you've just proven you have. These are far from the only good programs, ofc- there's solid ones at UIUC, UMich, UT-Austin, UCLA, Purdue, and a bunch of other places- and you certainly don't have to go to a great program to come out a successful engineer or get that elusive 'network' you get promised all the time when you're making decisions in high school.

Just strive to push yourself to your limits, and if you're willing to settle for less, ask yourself whether you actually want it badly enough (it's okay if you don't- just find your real passion and don't burn your time pursuing dreams you don't care about).

Edited 3/29/2017 23:13:51

Topkek all the colleges you listed have much more prestige than Yale.

@KK: https://www.quora.com/Should-I-choose-Yale-over-MIT-for-computer-science

People regularly turn down at least MIT, Berkeley, CMU, and Cornell for Yale.

But fine, Harvard. The poster-child of "schools you can brag about going to." It's not that great at CS/CE, unfortunately (although I think it's definitely got some solid work going on in some subsets of those fields), at least certainly not near the top of the field. Idk I've got friends going to Yale for CS over some schools on that list, too; from the small sample set I'm working with, it doesn't look like the decision has worked for them. But that's just a sidenote- it's not just prestige, people pick colleges that could hinder their education for all sorts of reasons (weather, location, politics, student body attractiveness, having a good football team to cheer for, 'oh no it's going to be too competitive'). Just don't shoot yourself in the foot for a stupid reason when you put in all that work to get that far, and certainly don't put much stock in advice from people whose first instinct in conversations about college is to bring up political issues.

Also, as a caveat, you can still go to one of these schools and not come out on top (obviously). It comes down mainly to your own interests and how much you're willing to invest in them.

Edited 3/29/2017 23:34:13

the university of Minsk is nice.

Also Heidelberg.

the university of Minsk is nice.

Also Heidelberg.

@knyte - PM me on discord, but with my parents divorce and the resulting monetary situation, I don't really think that CMU is feasible, even though I could very likely get in there for CS.

Please explain to me why we need a gender studies major in an IT company.

You misinterpreted me. I never said major, and I meant a course. There is nothing wrong with taking a gender studies course to broaden your perspective. In fact, it looks good to most employers, who would rather have a flexible workforce in a changing world. Companies don't want a stubborn traditionalist, unless they are stubbornly traditional, and there is good reason for that: They get less business, they get less money, and their competitors eventually take their market. Since, even if you disagree with the concept of gender studies, more and more people do, and you need to be able to tap those markets if you want to compete with your rival.