I’m going into my last year of college and I kinda felt like I did college wrong. Like, my grades are good but everything else about college I failed at. Like socially and stuff, after 4 years I barely know anybody. I commuted(to avoid debt, and did so successfully) so maybe that’s part of my problem.
But I feel college was supposed to be special time in your life and to me it has been indifferent. :/Thoughts?
You can’t control the past so there’s not much point stressing out over it. Learn what you can from it and apply those learnings in the present where you can actually change things. If you feel you didn’t do enough social things, maybe try joining clubs, being more proactive with organising things with your friends or something else that works for you.
Everyone’s experience is different and it doesn’t mean you did it wrong, you just focused on the things that made more sense to you at the time. Maybe you are realising you didn’t value some other things enough and that’s ok, you can bring those learnings forward.
Congrats on coming into your final year btw and good luck!
My thoughts are that if you didn’t make friendships or useful acquaintances during college then it’s probably down first and foremost to your personality type and how your classes were scheduled. But first and foremost, your personality.
You seem to be hung up on the myth of college as “that special experience” but it’s just a myth. If you happen to be just somewhat on the introvert side and your schedule mixed you up with different people for every course you were taking, good luck forging any long lasting relationships. You can socialise, of course, but if you don’t share the time consistently with people then it’s going to be about as long lasting as acquaintances you make on the elevator or the bus.
You will probably find you start networking much better once you get a job, simply because you will be spending time consistently with a limited amount of people.
You didn’t miss much. Move on and succeed!
For me, university literally made me depressed. But I also met my partner online during that time. I enjoyed studying but this myth that college is the time when you’ll meet loads of friends, have tons of sex and wild parties, etc. Is very, very harmful
College is a couple of decades ago for me. I don’t keep up with most of the people I met. The biggest significance it has on me at this point is the qualifications and skills I gained.
The people I’ve met since then have a much bigger impact on my life.
Lean in for the next chapter.
I have the exact opposite experience. It has been a decade and a half for me since I went to college. I went for 4 years, but eventually didn’t get a degree, because it wasn’t the right career for me. I do still keep in touch with the friends I made.
Now I’m doing a retry in college (2 years so far), completely different line of work and this time over I’m making friends, but the gained skills are definitely the most significant.
The difference is that this time, I don’t meet up with peoole outside of school (I have a wife and kids), which keeps the focus on school and away from long term friendships, because friendships are build on shared experiences.
I’m pretty bad at keeping up with people. I enjoy seeing old acquaintances and friends, but I never contact them. So it rarely happens.
Me too. I have a handful of longtime friends, but we see each other maybe once or twice per year. We do keep in touch via whatsapp a lot where we watch soccer games and star trek togehter-ish. I don’t like soccer, but it’s a good excuse to keep in touch with my friends. I feel that it’s hard to make new friends once you’re working fulltime, so I try to hang on to the once I have.
I had a shitty experience myself too.
It’s just another phase of life. You’ll move into the work industry and make friends there, have new experiences. Don’t give this time more significance than it deserves.
So speaking from experience and a background in education, the most important thing you’ll get from uni is yourself. Or more specifically, how you see yourself. Uni (college for you US folk) lets us extend our formative phase and define how we see ourselves and what we’ll put out into the world going forward.
So my advice is go easy on yourself, everyone’s experience is different and no one’s is right or wrong. You mention a lot of great things you did, heading towards graduation with good grades and little/no debt is a huge success, sounds like you’re practical, hard-working and smart. Maybe you didn’t have the wild ragers, hookups, BFFs that we see in media, but I’d imagine you did have some good social experiences, casual friends, good conversations (even in classes) and the sort of interactions that help you build better relationships later on in life.
Take a deep breath, focus on the positive, which there is plenty even in your short post, and remember you’ve got a whole exciting life ahead of you, plenty of time for adventures, friendships/relationships, and you’ve put yourself in a great position to find those.
And I apologize if this sounds preachy or therapisty (and reading comments, it’s not far from what others have said too), but I’m basically writing a letter to 22yo me, and at 38 now, trust me, life has been awesome after uni, so congrats on your hard work, power through to the end of the year, and take some time to feel proud of who you are and have become.
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Thanks alot for this, truly.
Just to add to all of this …
College/university, for some, is an overrated and over-hyped “life event” that doesn’t exist apart from in marketing land.
The relatively special thing about it is that it’s probably the last stage in your life where you’re forced through this process with a whole bunch of people together all at once. That means that social opportunities exist. But those opportunities aren’t necessarily attractive to everybody, especially if you actually have intellectual/educational goals in mind. I learnt pretty early on that I actually didn’t connect with as many as I thought I would despite plenty of social activity and despite the specific filtration that happens in taking a degree after high school. Just because you’re all the same age in the same degree doesn’t mean that you have that much in common. The super rich social life event is a pitch but not a reality for everyone.
I’d bet that you could do with a slightly healthier social life that suits you and isn’t concerned with meeting the expectations of what college is for, but that you should feel good about having gotten your grades and hopefully a useful degree that resonates with you and your interests. Take that, leave college behind, and make the most of the actual real world that’s about to open up for you.
Me, personally … I look back on college/university and think the whole thing is mostly a waste of time. Whatever education we want or need as a society can now be delivered better (IMO) with less hassle and in a way that’s actually integrated into our experience of and life within the real world. The more I think about it, the whole thing really does feel like a strangely distasteful mix of an aristocratic medieval idea of graduating into adulthood and isolating prestigious academics with modern capitalism and industrial complexes (in this case the education industrial complex).
Nah. College 100% lived up to the dream of preparing me for professional and social world, I spent time discovering myself and my interests, made lifelong friends, had an absolute blast and would do it all over in a heartbeat. I feel sorry for you if you viewed it as a waste of time, but it was anything but for me and my friends.
I feel sorry for you if you viewed it as a waste of time
It’s not really about that. It’s about how this one structure and path is viewed as the only way to graduate into being a valuable adult member of society. Meanwhile, it’s more or less obvious and intuitive that variation between people, especially at a sufficiently large breadth of possibilities for growth and complexity at both individual and social levels, means that diversity amongst people requires diversity amongst pathways for comparable outcomes to be achieved.
That is, a single system doesn’t work for everyone, and at some point, it’s worth questioning it’s primacy and not blaming ones self if it doesn’t live up to the “dream”/“hype”. This, IMO, becomes all the more important a critique when college/university’s primary value to the economy is certifying the vocational/intellectual qualities of a person … and yet so much of your statement and comments in praise of college here are about “having a blast”.
Also …
Nah. College 100% lived up to the dream …
Maybe it’s just your expression here, but it’s precisely this kind of sentiment (as I’m reading it right now) that I think is actually problematic. It worked for you. Great. Doesn’t mean it’s a good system or anyone’s fault if it didn’t work for them … and that’s what this thread is about. My first post said already made this point, even suggesting that the system might work for the majority (
But those opportunities aren’t necessarily attractive to everybody).The problem here is the tendency of those for whom “it lived up to the dream” to brush away any suggestions that the system isn’t great or has problems … rather than, I don’t know, have a conversation about it and engage some empathy to better understand where people are coming from … maybe they could form good friendships formed out of college? Without wanting to get too dramatic, this is the stuff of cultural hegemony and usually a process by which people get marginalised and society held back. Again, that college/university is the great “certification” of worth in modern western society makes this issue not insignificant.
Im not here to argue with you mate. But I think the experience of a college campus is great, and has a long lineage for a good reason. I’m proud of my liberal arts education and the experiences I had and the lessons I learned. Sure, it’s not for everyone — never said it is — but nothings for everyone. Obviously. But I do think it’s generally a good thing to put a bunch of young people in one place more or less dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and learning for that sake. I think it’s a good thing that young people are encouraged to “find themselves” and to party and to learn how to socialize with other people like them, and most everything else that comes wrapped in the college experience. Again it’s fine that it didn’t work for you, and I’m sorry that you feel like it was a waste of your time. But as I said, it couldn’t be further from the truth for me.
And also, bud, for someone bristling at presumptions being made, you sure did jump to one based on my brief expression. No one here isn’t “engaging with some empathy” with you. But we don’t have to agree with you either. 🤷♂️
you sure did jump to one based on my brief expression
Yea, you’re making this way too personal. It’s not about you and me, it’s more abstract than that. I had a good time at University. Just didn’t impress me and I think the system deserves critique.
Also, I might not have made myself clear on the whole cultural hegemony point … I was generalising from the impression I got off the expression. It wasn’t an accusation at you personally, but more a take on how a mainstream culture might struggle to process how and why a venerated institution doesn’t work for many, with your expression being used as a sort of archetype.
All that being said, personally, I wouldn’t underestimate how much one can contribute to a mainstream cultural hegemony by just being a member who is a tad indifferent, misunderstanding, unempathetic, and even, naive or unconcerned with the bigger cultural picture.
The more I think about it, the whole thing really does feel like a strangely distasteful mix of an aristocratic medieval idea of graduating into adulthood and isolating prestigious academics with modern capitalism and industrial complexes (in this case the education industrial complex).
Yeah, cause like OP you spent college min/maxing grades instead of holistically enjoying yourself.
For many it’s a chance to break away from their parents and discover who they are and what they want out of life in an idealistic setting; they get to be very close to all their friends and their only concerns are learning and thinking about how to best to live. For many it is the one brief period of adulthood free from the capitalistic drives of modern society that they’ll ever get to experience.
It’s telling that almost every major company that gets successful and prioritizes attracting employees ends up building a * campus*, to mimic the university experience.
Yeah, cause like OP you spent college min/maxing grades instead of holistically enjoying yourself.
I wouldn’t presume to know what I did at University, in part because you’re wrong, but also that’s just very rude of you.
You make good points. Some responses.
- I’m also critical of the sparse and exploitative capitalistic world adults are thrust into. Things like campuses are basically public spaces and can exist without needing to be a student and can be enjoyed by people if they’re not exhausted from their job.
- I think it’s idealistic to think college is a place where you can work out who you are. I think that’s an ongoing and a shifting target. I also think the isolated and idealistic setting can undermine the goal. As can the conflation with the pressure of establishing one’s future career (some need and struggle to get those grades for instance).
- It’s this ideology I criticised in my prior post. Life is long and complex these days, I don’t think this idea of maturing in the crucible of University to forever be prepared for the rest of your life makes sense. A crucible of self discovery and exploration is a good thing, but that’s where my point of integrating such practices into everyday life continually over one’s life comes in.
- Taking this further … what if someone doesn’t fit into this process or world view of idealistic college then capitalistic exploitation/drudgery? How would they discover this about themselves in this system? I’d argue they’d struggle and instead, as with the parent post, internalise any difficulties as due to their own failings, as the whole system is premised on measuring an individual’s performance and value, whether it be social or academic (and for the sake of a bit of tit-for-tar … I’m betting you have decent social networks both through your family and social skills and have always leveraged them to some extent in your livelihood, which is to say the system worked for you … genuinely curious about this).
- Once can break away from one’s parents in plenty of other ways. Employment, a salary, living in one’s own home with their own finances can be very empowering especially compared to the weirdly impoverished conditions students are expected to enjoy.
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Movies make it seem like it’s some magical land of partying and having life-changing experiences every week, but I think the average person just goes to class and goes home.
^ this
COVID-19 really fucked with the college experience. Add to that commuting and you basically skipped the “away from home and independent for the first time experience” as well as the “captive audience” life of thousands of people your own age looking to make friends and have fun.
That said, yesterday is gone so what about tomorrow? Do you plan to move to a different city for your new career? That could be very exciting.
My college experience was similar. It ultimately led nowhere for me. I don’t have a single contact anymore from my college. I don’t work in the field my degree was in. It really only served to show me what I didn’t want in life in retrospect. While I still had some fun and enriching experiences, college was only the reason I was where those took place. I graduated almost 10 years ago. College was basically the next highschool for me which I look back and think was a waste of time. 10 years on, I barely remember anything I learned.
Life gets better after college. Don’t worry about it. Cheers pal.
I did something similar to you and OP.
I commuted to university. I didn’t even like my university and their teaching program was incredibly poor. Money was incredibly tight. I never fit into the culture. The whole thing was still an experience in finding myself. I found I didn’t like cliques, didn’t like drinking/partying culture and just wanted quiet and intimate friendships. And that’s OK. University was full of difficulties and a poor experience for a lot of people. At least OP got through OK with good grades.
The good news for OP is that life gets better. Post-uni was the best time ever for me…people around me were more grown up, I finally had money, working life was much better and I had freedom to pursue what I wanted. University sucked for me and I got over it quickly and life has been getting much better since. Just look forward to how awesome your life can be from here on.
I even went back to university for a postgraduate degree much later and had a much better academic experience. Also at that point I didn’t care at all about getting into “student life” and just enjoyed studying.
Good luck OP.
You may just be a bit more on the introverted side of the spectrum and that’s normal. There are social expectations that we should “have lots of friends” and that college is a time to meet and hang out with people and do crazy stuff to think back on when we are in our 40s. I think those sentiments were created a few generations back when the cost of college wasn’t necessarily a concern. But even you, who managed to do it so far without debt, had to think about the cost as a big factor and it impacted how you attended. Surprise! A bunch of young adults trying to get an education while being stressed about a potentially life-altering amount of debt and an uncertain future aren’t really in the best place to be social and have fun. My point is don’t blame yourself; the system is kind of fucked right now.
If you get your degree that’s great, you’ll have access to more doors in life and hopefully that means more free time to devote to things you already know you like and maybe some stuff you’ve yet to find out you like. If you feel like you want more friends, there are social clubs, discord servers, and meetups in towns/cities you can look into to find folks who are more or less aligned with your interests rather than your education level. There is still a lot about life you’ve yet to see and I think a not-so-great college experience won’t be something you think about even a year after graduation.
Excellent points, and I’ll just add my own 2 cents.
I wouldn’t stress. I went to Weber State in Ogden, Utah, and its really more of a commuter school. Plenty of people living off campus and working full-time. I didn’t do a lot of parties or anything, but I had some good friends.
If you are happy, don’t worry about it. If you know a few people and that’s all you need, you’re good. Besides, there is plenty more of life where you can have a funner time.
I didn’t really start what I would call the ‘best part’ of my life till I met my wife at 27. I’m 34 and honestly enjoying it more than I did my 20’s
Man thanks for the reminder, What influnced my choices was cost and bachelor’s doesn’t have as much strength in the job market it once has. If a more free and less stressful comes at a cost a social life early one so be it. Older me will hopefully appreciate the foresight. I need to put more work in cultivating a more full social life.
Personally? I smoke weed, drink, and contemplate death. It doesn’t pay the bills but it also doesn’t make me happy.
I did the same thing in university. I ate, slept (usually), avoided unnecessary expenses, and focused on my grades. One day I woke up with a degree. Then another.
Then I got a job, where I largely didn’t socialize and just focused on doing good work, and avoiding unnecessary expenses. Then I immigrated to another country, and kept the same habits. Then I started a company, again with the same habits.
One of the valuable things in this world is the ability to focus. There is nothing wrong with you.
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Are you happy today and were you happy then?
My nature is to prioritize knowledge over happiness. That being said, I am also relatively happy right now, and was then too.
There was the whole part in the middle where I immigrated to a new country. That was properly hard. I wasn’t particularly happy during the first half decade of that.
The “college experience” is different for everyone. It’s also a relatively short period of your life. Instead of looking back with regret or dissapointment, look forward to what you can do after you graduate. Find community in your next endeavor, settle in, find ways you can help those in need around you. Plan adventures, build relationships with those you care about. It’s technically possible to settle somewhere and grow roots.
Yeah, part of me is really happy to have this time of my life behind me. I know that life post college has it own struggles, I’ll deal with those when I get there. But I’m happy to almost be done with my current ones.
You’re not dead yet; make the next phase better.
I failed out of college altogether the first time, so at least you have to going for you.
