if you could redo your education ...

No to CC first. If you're going to university, you will need to experience the full four years. Pledge a fraternity, play sports, etc. I wouldn't change anything about my four (five) years for anything.

 

Hmm... well.... I have to start in 8th grade to fix things.

1. I would not have gone to the Latin School of Chicago. I was miserable there. It was all snobby rich kids. I got in with really high test scores. My father is pretty wealthy, but I couldn't compete with those kids. They were old money, and I was the liberal punk. I didn't fit in, and it sucked. I may never forgive them. That said, the one who had the biggest reason to be a snob was the coolest chick in the school. Lauralee Bell, from the Young and the Restless, was just plain nice, and I will never have a negative thing to say about her. Those of you still in high school. I tell ya. This stuff sometimes sticks with a person, so don't be a schmuck. I really don't think about it, since my life is pretty good, and I have a wonderful son and wife... but when something brings up the memories... it still touches a nerve... and this was only my freshman year!

2. I didn't play soccer my senior year of high school. I have no idea why... I just didn't feel like it. That changed my life! I was good... every team I was on during my freshman, sophomore, and junior years won their conference. Back then... I'm sorry... you just couldn't get a ball past me (sweeper). That's not education... but it's related. Note to self -- Why in the world did you settle for THAT school? That's not your first choice. Why didn't you get your SAT scores in on time? Dork.

3. College year 1.... Note to self... whether or not you like the teacher is irrelevant. Do the freakin' work. Note to self... WAKE THE ********** up and get to your 8:00 class! I don't care if you're tired!!!!! Yes, that chick is seriously hot... but even she's not worth it! Neither is that other one... her either...

4. College year 2... Look... Ann is not worth getting upset over. GET HELP! Recognize the signs of depression. You should not be sleeping all day and staying up all night!!! Go to class! You joined WHAT? Do you really think a fraternity is going to help you when you're in this situation? Go to class!!!!

5. College year 3... Umm... you ended up with a 0.976 GPA?? Are you serious? What? You're not even going to transfer your credits? You're going to pretend you never even went to college? That's a weird decision. Perhaps you'll need those credits someday. Oh well. I guess you know what's best. Let's go to community college. HEY! Nice job. president's list two semesters in a row... including a 20 semester hour one... and a 10 semester hour SUMMER session? You're getting things together! How in the world did you end up with 30 hours of psychology and mental health counseling? They were the best classes you've ever taken? Great... but what are you going to do with them?

6. College year 4... Yay... nice job at community college. On to the next level. Once again... it doesn't matter if you don't like the teacher. Do the work! You took an education class to see if you still wanted to be a teacher? What do you mean you never went and got an F? That's not going to look good. You dropped everything? You're going to what school? You sure you want to try to head that far out of town again? Look what happened last time. ok... if you know best.

7. College year 5. Whoop-dee-doo. You helped usher in the rave scene in St. Louis. You're so cool. Yes... you're quite well known in all the clubs. Will that help you get a job in the future? I didn't think so. You live where? Isn't that a little far from campus? Will you go to class? You will? Ok. You have the answers to the poly sci test? Are you sure they're legit? Ok... well, you should remember them with some kind of mnemonic. Maybe something that represents all of the letters of the answers.... Perhaps for "CADDD" you can start it, "Cocaine addicts, DIE DIE DIE!" Yeah, that'll work. B! Nice job... Go back to Chicago.

8. College year 6. Still there, eh? Well, enroll in some classes. Nice. Everything seems to be going well. Wait. You've stopped going to classes? Why? I don't think you should do that. Oh well, that's a seriously wasted semester and bunch of cash. At least you remembered to drop all your classes.

9. BREAK 1! You're going to leave school for a while to run a big coffeehouse in Chicago? Strange choice. Good luck with that! I QUIT!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going back to school again because someone called up and asked if I wanted to.

10. College year 8. You're an idiot. You are depressed again and you skipped all your classes. Your roommate moved out and left you with a two bedroom apartment that you don't need. Thanks, bud! I'm sure glad you talked me into going back. You've stopped going to your classes? You're stressed? You've been suffering from debilitating anxiety attacks? You are actually beginning to puke uncontrollably several times a day? Seek help! Hey. You left. You forgot to drop your classes!!!

11. Break 2! Well, not really. You've decided to go to a trade school for computers. What an utter waste of time. It's 1995 and they're teaching you DOS, WordPerfect 5.1, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBase III? That'll be very useful! What a modern school. At least they showed you how far ahead of everyone else you are. Such an aptitude for computers!

12. You're still not going to school? You're working for IBM and several other places? That's not very good money you're making... and you're commuting too far!

13. Hey. Nice girl. Maybe you'll marry her someday!Maybe you can deal with taking a couple classes again. Ok. Not too bad. A's and B's... you should have turned in your stuff on time to that poetry class.

14. You're moving to Pennsylvania to be with that girl? That's insane! Hey. Why don't you take a couple of classes at Penn State while you're there. Really? Those were some of the best classes you've ever taken? Wow. a 4.0. Nice! And you aced that adolescent counseling class you took as a correspondence course as well? Nice.

15. Wow. You have almost enough credits to graduate with a BA! Perhaps you could find some way to get some more credits. HEY! What would happen if you bit the bullet with your crappy first couple years of school and transferred in those credits? WHAT?! You have enough credits to graduate with one more class? Man. It's been 10 years since you graduated from high school. I say go for it! BTW... Congratulations on your marriage. She's a nice girl. NICE JOB!

16. Well, ya have a BA. Nice. Money's coming in now that you're back from PA. You're earning 10 bucks an hour. Wow. 11. Wow... 12. Wow... they hired you full time. 30k a year! Wooo.... exciting. That other company wants you for 36K? Ok! Hey. Why don't you do what you always wanted to do and become an English teacher? But it's so hard. You doubt yourself. Look at those transcripts! OH SHUT UP AND DO IT!

17. Ok! you enrolled! Good job. Funny how you started school and two months later got laid off. Yeah, I know they wanted to hire you for that other position... but you're on a mission now. How're you doing in school? A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A... Wow. You went through your whole post-grade with a 4.0? Nice job.

... and the rest is history.

Thank you... thank you very much.

I've got a lot to change! Holy crap was I a screw up. Meeting my wife was probably what turned things around... but I always did poorly when I was away from home. It was odd. Nobody to watch over me. I'm ok now!!!!! I'm a new but well-respected English teacher at an inner city high school. I've got an 18.5 month old son!

My advice. Have fun... but take academics seriously. High school... college... all of your decisions will affect where you want to be. Be careful!!! Make good choices! No man or woman is worth putting up with negative crap and being too hurt over. If you're sick... seek treatment.

 

I wish I'd taken undergrad a bit less seriously, and had stayed a fourth year to pick up a third major in either Spanish or another language. My real regret is not getting the opportunity to live in Europe (or Buenos Aires) as a student.
Oh, and realizing sooner that girls will do most anything if you ply them with moderately expensive champagne.

 

Ways I would redo my education.

1) Schmoozed a little more in high school. While I went to a public school, it was one of the better ones in the state. I had classmates & friends get full rides to Harvard, Stanford, Washington & Lee, Rollins, Emory, and tons of other expensive, private schools. I had the grades and plenty of the extracurriclar stuff, but didn't buy into the whole kissing the butt of the college counselors and didn't get paid very much attention by them. I was one of the first people in my family to go to college, so I didn't know how to explore those avenues on my own.

2) Go away to school. Truthfully, I couldn't afford it. I had to work the entire time through school and take out loans and just finished paying those off this year (finished school five years ago.) If I had room & board on top of tuition, I'd be paying for who knows how long. Out of state or private was simply unthinkable for our then broke selves.

3) The one thing I really really really regret was not doing a semester abroad. Once again, it came down to money. I chose pragmatism over the experience of a lifetime. What a dumbass. I had some decent paying jobs in college (about as good as a college student could get anyway) and was afraid of losing them if I took 6 months or more off to study abroad. I guess since my family was always broke growing up, money (or lack thereof) always loomed large. Fear of debt was another big thing, although that didn't stop me from running up some after I graduated. Now that I've found out my wife I are expecting our first child, the living abroad thing is becoming increasingly more complicated. I know it can be done, but it won't be easy (but then again, the good things in life never are...)

4) I wish I'd stuck with learning a language. I hopped around on a few and came out not really knowing any of them well. If I went to any countries where those languages were spoken, I would starve to death and I could ask directions to the bathroom....

5) I sometimes wish I'd taken a completely different major course. Not sure what I would've wanted to do exactly, but there's several things I could imagine might've suited me better than what I did do. I don't regret what I chose, just perhaps should've chosen differently. Some of what I'd like to get into requires specific schooling and that's going to be difficult to do now.

 

I would not go to the sh!thole that was my high school. It was a good place to learn to sleep in class, draw on the desks, and get into trouble. Private school would have been better.

I'd also like to have gone straight to a UNiversity.

 

I wish I would have continued studying German in college. I was great at it in high school. Instead, I took French and got one of the one two Cs I ever received. I hated it, and I didn't have the discipline to do it well. French is obviously a much prettier language, but I regret more than anything finishing college without knowing any foreign languages, and continuing with German would have been the easiest way to have corrected that.

I wish I would have taken a few more serious literature classes in college and fewer BS classes like "Sci-Fi Literature" (jeez, I even hated sci-fi!) and "Theater of Dissent."

That said, I wish I would have gone to a better undergrad school.

As far as grad school goes, well, I went to the best program in the nation in my field <blows warm breath on knuckles, buffs knuckles on chest>. My only regret is that I didn't work harder to make and keep contacts. Some of my classmates and friends have been published in the New Yorker, Harper's, and The Atlantic Monthly, and several have had stories and poems in the Best American series. I have next to nothing. At the time, that kind of schoozing seemed repellent (not that all of them were schmoozers). Now I see that it is pretty much the ONLY way to make it.

 

Out of curiosity, why? I found in my undergrad there were two types of people - people who had a major, and people who were majoring in psych, polisci, sociology or "business".

 

If I had gone to a college that didn't have a distribution requirement in foreign languages, my grades would have been good enough to get me into a better law school.

 

I can't really think of too much I would change. I wish I took better shop classes in high school so that I could deal with capentry, electrical, and plumbing things around the house. But when I went to college, it turned out my high school had provided better preparation than I'd thought, and graduate school revealed the same thing about college. I probably wouldn't have gone to a Ph.D. program, though, if I'd realized the fact that I don't really like reading scholarly articles should've told me that I wasn't going to get too interested in producing them. So I probably would've gone to law school or library school instead. Got to read some great stuff, though, so I won't complain too much.

 

No real regrets through high school--but college:

1. I wouldn't have taken Latin freshman year.
2. I wouldn't have taken Latin sophomore year.
3. Would have taken some economics classes in my first two years--would have given me a wider set of options later on.
4. In general I would have paid more attention and tried harder in classes that I didn't really enjoy--some of them turned out to be important later on.

No second-guessing in grad school so far.

 

i would have stayed at unc instead of moving to atlanta, ga

 

If I had redo my high school education ( Of course it's not possible in real life)

I would at least get B in Maths.

I was so poor in Maths when I was at school

 

I don't really have many complaints.

But if I could I'd go back and do my last three years of High School ALL over again. My GOD I'm missing that time in my life right now.

 

Would have gone to Chaminade Univeristy in Hawaii, been a surfing bum and possibly never fretted about anything else. Or to take the complete opposite, gone to Babson College with the business brainiacs to "wheel and deal" now in the land of psuedo high finance. Annapolis could have been interesting too.

Actually no regrets. There are just too many possibilities out there and we can't experience them all.

 

I think I would have gone back to grad school right after undergrad school instead of waiting 6 years. it was frigging HARD to become a student again.

Come to think of it I might have skipped grad school altogether, it hasnt done me jack all of good, though luckily i dont have loans to repay.

Though basically no regrets.

 

Man, some of these posts are depressing me. I'm a senior in an Ivy league school, with a 3.2 GPA, unable to land a job interview. My changes would be to study harder the first 3 years and not dropping engineering after 1 1/2 years. Oh yeah, and get an internship. They're very important!

 

geez where to start,,,,,would not have played freshman football because it screwed my back up and missed a year of playing soccer because of it. would have payed attention and worked my ass off to get good grades so i could have gone to a decent school instead of going to URI and turning majoring in alcohol like most of my buddies did. So after joining the USAF to keep me semi sober i would have taken better advantage of the college courses offered. 21 years since I graduated and still need like 30 credits for my bachelors. I have a decent job, pretty wife, 3 fairly good kids, 300k dollar house. Been to italy, germany, belgium, france, holland, austria, luxemborg, ireland, england and a classified location that everyone knows near the Iraqi border,,,all on uncle sams tab! Been a pretty decent life,,,,come to think of it,,,things turned ok,,,,screw it,,,I am glad i got high and drank beer in HS!!! PARTY!!!!!! Unfortunately, my oldest is taking after my study habits in her first year of college,,,this does not please me!!

 

Study what interests you most. Don't listen to "advisors" who attempt to herd you into a particluar major that is hot for jobs in the market right now. Follow what you love and the rest will take care of itself. If someone had told that to me a while back, I would have been as happy as I am now, a whole lot sooner.

 

my life was ruined by teacher counselors who failed to report my invitation notices. it was a week later so i was stuck in a private school mastering the fine arts of cuisine. i regret putting my future in stupid teachers hand. look at me now a certified chef with a smile on my face.

 

I'm a freshman at King's College in London.
And this is because I got rejected from every single place I applied in the US.

But I don't like what I'm studying (Geography).
And there's pretty much NO flexibility.

And I don't know if i want to transfer...cause I like living in England so much, and I know things can only get better as far as social stuff is concerned.

I guess my one regret, in fact, not just a regret, but i problem i deal with every day, is relying too much on my dad. If I had found a way to pay my own way through college, then I wouldn't feel somewhat compelled to do what he wants me to do, even though I dont necessarily want to do it.

sigh.

 

Pardon my ignorance! What is a certified chef? I didn't know that one needs to be certified to become a chef.

 

I would not have majored in French and minored in Religion. Tell me, what am I supposed to do with that? And I should have visited the career center more often because then I would have realized that I should have majored in something else.

 

Go get a history degree and specialize in French religious history?