What I wish I would have known before going to college. · 7:35am Dec 15th, 2016
I'm finally graduating guys. I just took my last final a few hours ago and (barring something going horribly wrong) I should get my degree in the mail in two months. I spent an inordinate amount of time getting my undergraduate degree. "Super-senior" doesn't even begin to cover somehow graduating with over 190 credit hours.
So with all that knowledge, I wanted to give some advice for anyone applying for (and currently in) college so that they won't make the same mistakes I did, and some useful stuff I learned along the way.
Pick the right school
I honestly picked the wrong university to go to. I got in to a fairly prestigious school, and that is where I failed. I should have picked a crappier school to go to and I would have actually learned what I wanted to learn.
Let me explain. The University I went to was in fact a university of colleges. There's a college for Business, Arts, Math, Humanities and everything in between. However, despite getting into this university, that did not qualify me to enter these individual colleges. I had to take pre-requisite classes (often taking two or more semesters worth of class time) in order to get the privilege of applying to get into these colleges.
After sinking three semesters into a school, it gets hard to transfer away. And due to the fact that it's prestigious, I was "lucky" to get into the university in the first place. But due to the competition I had when I got there, that made it impossible for me to get into these colleges. I was competing for limited spots against people that were way better than me.
So I spent a year and half floundering in the Computer Science program hoping that I would be let into the CS: Animations Emphasis so I could finally learn what I wanted to actually learn: Computer Animation. They rejected me three times.
So I switched to Business. I wanted to get an Information Systems degree, so I spent another semester taking a full load of business pre-requisites. They didn't let me in.
This is an epidemic amongst people I know. I know one girl who I NEVER saw at any moment NOT drawing in her sketchbook. She was constantly drawing, constantly improving, constantly trying her absolute hardest to create the best portfolio ever to get into the Animation program. They didn't let her in.
My girlfriend, who just wanted to be an art teacher, found out that the program she was getting into suddenly decided that year that they were going to have an application process. She didn't get in.
Essentially, before you pick your school you go to, find out if you will actually be allowed to learn what you want to learn.
Also keep in mind that if you barely make it to a prestigious school, it can be demoralizing and devastating to constantly be in the bottom half of your class when you are so used to being the best in high school. So many people switch majors from what they wanted to do, to something they didn't care for, because they looked at their classmates and decided that they "weren't doing as well as others." Skip the drama, go to a crappier school, you'll be the best, and you'll actually learn and eventually do what you wanted in the first place. (They're exceptions for this, like Law degrees, research what you're getting into)
You're supposed to know the material already
I made a fundamental error trying to apply to these programs.
If you want to get into any kind of program, the application reviewers want you to know ALL of the material you will be learning BEFORE you get in.
Let me rephrase that.
You should know all the material before applying.
This is to ensure that the school looks as good as possible. All of their graduates are absolutely astounding students! Not because of anything the teachers did, but because the students came in already knowing the curriculum! So if you want to get into a Computer Animation program, please already have 400 hours worth of Maya practice already under your belt. And if you want to get into a Graphic Design program, please already be employed as a graphic designer.
This entire system makes me wanna scream. I expect this kind of crap for jobs. An employer wants to know you have some experience before paying you money to do it. I did not expect to see the same thing inside the education system. And it took me so long to realize that this was how the world operated.
Here's how education should work. I want to learn X. I have never touched it before in my life but I think it would be cool to try it out. I will now take this class in order to learn X and see if I like it. If I like it, I will continue to learn it until I get my degree in it.
Except you can't, not in a University setting. Or at least not at the University I went to. (I regret not shopping around for schools more)
So how are you supposed to learn something if they don't allow you to learn it at school?
The internet.
Seriously.
Wanna be a better drawer, start watching some Youtube videos on beginner drawing techniques. Wanna learn how to code? Go to CodeAcademy. Wanna learn pretty much all the math you'll ever want? KhanAcademy.
Also, if you're interested in learning on your own, please check out this panel I did on Learning how to learn. It's got a lot of good stuff. I use Brony hobbies as the subject, but a lot of what I say can be applied to learning pretty much anything.
And while I'm here, I have to recommend Lynda.com. It's a service designed specifically to give you job skills. It's expensive, but PLEASE check if your local library gives you free access to this service. This is a much better learning experience than anything I ever got at University. They have classes on Business, UX Design, The Adobe Creative Suite, Programming, 3D animation, regular animation, Data Science, video production and everything in between. And if you can't get it for free, it may actually be worth it to pay the monthly membership, especially if you want to get a job doing Graphic Design and stay up to date. Pretend it's the cost of a textbook. And treat it as such (I'm assuming you read your textbooks diligently).
Everything is categorized (poorly)
Here was my problem in 2012: I wanted to learn how to make websites. What would be the best major or classes I should take in order to learn how to do that?
I (foolishly) thought computer science. And I stuck with that for a long time. I saw on the major schedule a class named "Internet Programming" and I worked diligently to someday finish the four sequential prerequisites in order to be allowed to take that class.
Sometime during then, I discovered the "Digital Humanities" department. Guess what they do. They teach you how to make websites. While I was scratching my eyes out in CS under the absolute torture that is C++, I moonlighted learning HTML (Heavenly), CSS (annoying, but workable), and Javascript (WOOHOO!). All because I searched outside my domain of classes I thought I was supposed to take and found something that actually taught me what I wanted to know.
However, this gets even more egregious.
What is the difference between Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, and Digital Humanities?
There are differences. I'm sure a whole book could be written about all the differences and all the flavors. And I'm sure there are good reasons for these divisions that I don't understand yet.
But there is a serious amount of overlap! Pretty much half the curriculum is shared between all these "specialties." But they teach it in different ways, and more importantly, in different colleges.
So Computer Science is taught in the Math College. Information Systems is taught in the business school. IT is taught in the engineering college. And Digital Humanities is taught in the Humanities college. None of these colleges talk to each other or tell their students that the others exist. For example, on the first day of CS class, they don't stop and talk about the 5 other places on campus you could learn something similar.
So... I came in with the wrong paradigm. "I wanna make a website, I should go into CS." That was an absolutely incorrect choice (at least for me (who knows maybe you happen to like abstract math/coding/suffering)).
I didn't know the others were options. Looking back now, the degree I should have picked from the beginning should have been IT. They get a little bit of everything, and they can code if they want to. The abstract mathematical nature of CS irked me to no end. (Of course, I was relying on getting into the animation program anyway, but that didn't pan out)
The modern education system wants to be a long brick hallway, with individual doors leading to individual rooms with an impenetrable wall in between every room. But as much as we humans want to categorize and fit everything in little boxes, existence isn't like that. Knowledge interconnects and intertwines in ways we can't imagine. And it's even harder to imagine it because education keeps trying to make it stay in it's own little box.
University wanted me to focus on one thing, even though I preferred to dabble in everything. In the end, I guess I'm just annoyed I couldn't take a bunch of classes in everything and call that my degree. I had to pick one thing, a "major," and stick with it far beyond what I cared for.
Ask
There's a reason people don't like technology. It's rigid. You can't reason with a website when it says you need to add a number and a capital letter to your password. You're just stuck making up some password you'll never remember on a site you'll avoid in the future.
People, however, are much nicer. So when something terrible happens and the syllabus says something, feel free to ask the Teachers Assistant or Professor for clarification or anything. The worst they can say is "no."
Case in point. I HATE not being able to write on my tests. I know it saves trees. But I'm a visual person and not being able to cross out the incorrect answers and just focus on the ones I know is just aggravating. I find it baffling that there are people that can somehow only mark their answers on a scantron without annotating everything. However, I could have asked the disability center for a note that gives me permission to write on tests. People are accommodating, even if the rules appear rigid.
Quick aside: Your university may give you free access to counseling and psychological services. If life is endless suffering in an eternal abyss of high functioning depression, there's no shame in seeking help. High functioning depression... is still depression, even if you're the only one that notices it.
Learn Technology
When's the last time you watched a tutorial about some software you use on a regular basis? I know it might seem like a waste of time, but there is so much information and so much you can do that you didn't even know you could do. Go into system settings, break something and then fix it.
You may think you know how to use a computer, but unless you are keeping up your skills by reading Lifehacker or software blogs, you may be missing out. So many people don't know how to use computers (fascinating blog post, by the way).
Here's a quick example: Have you ever done an airplane mode test on your powerpoint slides before?
If you did not have access to the internet, would you still be able to present everything? If not, your slideshow does not pass the airplane mode test. That youtube video you link to in your slides should be downloaded beforehand and embedded into your slideshow, saving time, and ensuring that even without internet access, you'll be able to say what you wanted to say.
Do you know how to view multiple gmail accounts in chrome at once?
Open an incognito tab Ctrl+Shift+N to log into another account.
A teacher gives you a timed open-book online test. However, the PDF readings you have aren't "searchable." Why? And how do you make them searchable?
It is because the PDF was saved as an image. In order to quickly search the content, run the PDF through OCR (Optical Character recognition) like Evernote or Adobe Acrobat Pro. Then you will have a searchable document and be able to fully search through the document quickly.
Technology literacy is something that's not taught well in schools, but is crucial to helping you succeed.
One of the best things I did in university was sell my soul to Adobe. Adobe is this strange company that makes pretty much all creative software. Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash (what the show, MLP:FiM uses), After Effects, Premiere (the industry standard for video production) etc. It's expensive, but as a student you can buy pre-paid Adobe Creative cloud cards (turning into about 20$ a month). Pretend it's your textbook and learn every aspect you can get your hands on.
Watching Lynda.com to learn the Adobe Creative Suite has helped me immensely. I ended up being really valuable at my part-time job because I learned the Adobe Creative Suite. And having learned the software has allowed me to learn other software even easier as a lot of the concepts overlap.
I ended up winning a poster contest for a history class I was in (70$ cash prize), because I knew Adobe InDesign while everyone else was trying to make theirs in Powerpoint. For my job, I got to make User Interface mockups in Illustrator, because I knew it already trying to learn how to vector ponies. On my internship, I made a motion graphics video tutorial for their product, using After Effects (which I originally intended to learn because I wanted to make pony videos)
Learning the Adobe Suite has been incredibly worth it. (And I will now be a slave to adobe and pay them 50$ a month the rest of my life to keep my subscription, and that's okay because it pays for itself and is an in demand skill)
And don't dismiss learning business software like Microsoft office. So many people write "Microsoft Office Suite" on their resume. But do they really know how to filter an excel spreadsheet in order to find information quickly? How about using IF functions? You never know when you might need to play around in a spreadsheet and it can be incredibly useful.
You get Microsoft Office for free! Use that .edu address for all it's worth. And always take advantage of software discounts for the .edu address.
Above all else
Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
-Mark Twain
Despite the amount of time I spent in the system, I learn best on my own, without the fear of grades or deadlines bothering me. The entire time I was in University, I learned far more from my part-time jobs and things I learned on the side, than I did in class.
Still go to university, but don't let that be your only education.
College definitely seems different from when I went back in 1987->1990(Yeah I went for 3.5 years the exact opposite of your experience in that regard). Of course Computer Science was NEW back then, and they didn't have time to segregate everything away from it and squirrel it in other departments. Of course the languages I used back then were not the languages of today, but who knew C++ was going to be a thing back then? BBS's with fidonet was the web for the most part. I mean the true internet had irc, ftp, telnet, gopher, and some other stuff, but the spiders didn't weave the web yet.
My advice is a little different from yours.
1) While in college never make an enemy of a professor -- it can really come back to haunt you.
2) Look at the grades a college gives. Gradeflated colleges will help you more in the long run than choosing one that has stricter grading standards. I mean regardless of if a 3.0 is the top quarter of the class at your college and 3.0 is the bottom quarter at a different college, employers will see a number.
3) Be aware of your free time -- you want to either be starting your career in college or at least making contacts, or start working on your self-employment(not as viable today as it was -- when I went to college coming out with $12,000 in loans was a lot and you could easily get away with less if you were diligent about it). At the very least you need a plan, or you will graduate college and not have a place and if you have tons of loans, the job you will find won't pay the interest.
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If you are considering a college, note that at any of the higher level colleges, the professors do not even want to teach. Profs are there to do research and you are an annoyance.
Oh, and one of the most important things is who you end up with as a roommate. If you get someone horrible, it can wreck your life as well. Be certain to go in with other people and not get placed randomly, even if you hardly know people. Going for a single and getting a poor number and ending up with randoms can be very very bad.
I'd really love a college system where you could pick from many classes and then perhaps have to justify your degree/choice of classes to some group. There were so many classes that I had to take that I felt were mostly there for the specialized few that might be going further in those areas but weren't particularly useful for somehow who wanted to mostly learn about writing and editing. As a language nerd, things like semantics, pragmatics, or phonology were interesting, but I'm sure if I had been able to pick my own mix, I would have ended up with a more satisfying mix of advanced classes.
Part of the problem is that so much of our learning system is still based on older traditions that served well during the times of the industrial revolution up to the start of the technological revolution. Things didn't change as much back then so a person with X degree might be well suited for jobs X, Y, or Z. I feel like now there's so much overlap. Basic coding and design knowledge are pretty much useful in almost any job, and really a lot of business knowledge would have been useful to have for pretty much any position, too. While there are still a lot of specialized jobs, I feel like the basics of what schools teach needs to be updated to better match with the real world.
Yeahhh, I don't think your experience is actually representative of the state college experience. c.c I'm glad I wasn't interested in "prestigious" schools if they're all that shit.
After dropping out of an expensive private university I've had five years to mess up at a community college instead
First of all, congratulations! You did it!
I enjoyed reading this, though it really isn't applicable to me anymore. I found it kind of interesting how different our experiences were. It probably helped that I knew exactly what I wanted to study and my college just lets everyone in, so I never had to deal with all those problems that come from having to change what you're studying.
I'm two decades past college, so I skipped past most of the post, but con-freaking-gratulations on the degree!
I studied Computer Science at a small non-prestigious university and pretty much had the opposite experience. I was tech savvy when I started, but had done little programming before-hand. The university really helped me grow as a software developer. I learned a lot, and even more about how little I actually knew. I didn't exactly feel ready to start working afterwards, but it worked out fine in the end anyway.
I had no issue signing up for the classes I wanted. When I did have an issue it was often just a matter of asking the teacher of an exception. Then again, the university was small enough to have some room to spare in each of the classes.
Sure, there were some things that could have been improved, but I don't think I could have been happier with the end result either way. Also, living in a country with free education and having overly kind parents means that I didn't have to go into debt. My degree may not be from a very prestigious school, but I still don't think that matters much.