12 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Went to College
Although freshman year is looking, um, different this year, there are certain things you still need to know whether you’re staying at home or moving into your dorm. You’ve probably heard a ton of advice from your parents, and friends, and older sibs, and high school guidance counselors, and Google, on all the big stuff: choosing the right school, picking your major, parties. But are you expecting credit card offers to lure you in with free sign-up perks?? Do you know what a direct subsidized loan is?! I didn't. The good news is, you don't have to make the same mistakes I did.
Applying to college and preparing to leave home can be stressful. And during a pandemic? It's Elmo-fire-gif levels of stress. (P.S.: Here's some advice from graduates who've been there.) But it's okay! Deep breaths.
While some of your classmates will say they’ve known what they wanted to do or where they wanted to be since birth, it’s fine if you’re not there yet. College is a time to explore, make mistakes and grow. Here are some lessons that I learned that can help you prepare for whatever happens next...
1. Spend some (read: a lot) time learning about finances
My senior year of high school looked like this: trips to the mall, studying for AP exams, working nights and weekends at a pet store, rinse, repeat. Sure it was fun, but none of that helped me understand how to consolidate student loans or what a variable APR was!!
Oh, and I didn’t learn about this in college either. In fact, it took months after graduating to start researching what any of those terms meant—and that was only because the bills started rolling in. Financial education 101 didn’t end with student loans. I was just as uninformed about savings and credit cards.
“None of your college classes (even if you take a course in finance!) will teach you street smarts about how to handle your money,” says Dr. Jed Macosko, professor and academic director of AcademicInfluence.com. “Make sure you are clear on how to keep track of your expenses, avoid credit card debt (extra funds from college loans will cost you far less in interest), and what kind of career will match your starting salary goal.”
While learning about atoms might have helped me if I was a scientist today (hi, I'm not), learning about money would have been a lot more valuable to me as an adult. And I’m not alone. According to a survey from CollegeFinance.com, 90 percent of respondents said that not understanding their student loan led to a serious consequence, and 84 percent borrowed more money than needed and accrued credit card debt.
“It is important to understand the long-term impact of opening so many ‘free’ credit cards on your credit score, and the potential implications for debt,” says Laura Brennan, director, Texas OnCourse. “A good rule of thumb is that if you cannot pay for that ‘non-essential’ item with cash, you should not put it on a credit card. The same is true for your student loans. Remember, it is not free money and you will have to pay it back, and often with interest.”
2. Consider going to community college for two years
'Kay so I don’t remember a high school teacher or counselor even bringing up community college as an option—even though there was an *excellent* one 10 minutes away from my childhood home!!
Fast forward two years into my college experience, when a bunch of new students transferred into my school from community college. Their experience? So impressive! Me? Still bitter at those high school teachers and counselors! “Going to community college can save a tremendous amount of money both in tuition and living expenses,” says Terry Mady-Grove, a certified educational planner. “Community colleges often have articulation agreements with four year colleges making the transfer seamless.”
When I think back to my first two years of college, I couldn’t name a single course or professor from my general education studies. College was expensive enough, and it would have been a great advantage to save money on those courses by starting out at a lower-cost community college. Sigh.
3. Don’t go to the campus store on move-in day
There was something that felt sooo traditional about walking into the campus store with my mom and buying books, a school T-shirt, and other random over-priced stuff. My future self tells you that those books were outrageously expensive, you’ll never wear that T-shirt and you can buy most of those accessories at a big box store. The campus store is a glorified gift shop and charges a lot more for convenience than you should feel like you *have* to spend. Buy used books, ppl!
4. Think about where you want to live after graduation
The one thing that no one talks about on a college tour is what'll happen after those four years. While an undergrad in D.C., I built a strong professional network in town. I had internships, kept in touch with my editors and professors and leveraged those connections to find my first few jobs after college. That all sounded like a success story to me—except I'd never asked myself whether or not I wanted to stay in D.C. after college.
Turned out, the answer was no. Two years post-graduation, I moved back to Philadelphia, where I had no professional contacts at all and felt like I was starting over from scratch. Had I given some thought to where I wanted to plant my roots, I probably would have considered going to college in the Philadelphia area. Even though I went to networking events, there was no way to replicate the four years of connections I had developed in D.C.
5. You'll need to learn how to live with a person you don’t like
So I was pretty sure that I’d walk into my college dorm, see my roommate, and poof! Just like that, we'd become instant best friends and live happily ever after. The reality was nowhere close. We were polar opposites and both begrudgingly suffered through our freshman year in close quarters.
Managing interpersonal relationships are a natural part of college, but it’s also incredibly eye-opening to live in such close quarters with someone you don’t like. Having a more realistic mindset about my roommate would have been *so* good, since I had set my expectations so high. The upside tho: the experience actually prompted me to get out of my comfort zone, be more proactive, and meet more people.
“Learning to live with someone who you might not like is an important adaptive skill to master,” says Elena Lister, MD, a psychiatrist on the faculty of Columbia and Cornell Medical Centers. “While not easy, it is rewarding because there are many times in life after college when one has to work with people you might not choose to be friends with or might frankly dislike.”
6. You never know who your friends will wind up being
For some ppl college is fully a fresh start when it comes to who's in your group chat. For me tho, I put in a lot of work to keep in touch with my closest friends from high school. Most ppl were doing the opposite—growing up and making new relationships in college.
Fast forward 15 years later, my best friend is someone I went to high school with. I keep in touch with ~five people that I went to college with, and the majority of my friends were formed in my adulthood. It doesn’t make sense to follow a script when it comes to relationships—they could work out in ways that you never planned on. Do you!
7. Don't get caught up in what you think you're "supposed" to be doing
I struggled in college between what I should be doing and what I wanted to be doing. Translation: Yeah, there was always a party to go to, but they stressed me out!! The times I made myself go, I didn’t have fun, and the cycle continued. I wish someone had told me that if I would rather study or sleep, I should. I can confidently say that no one today cares what party I did or didn’t go to. “Learn to be proud of who you are as a person,” says Steven Roy Goodman, MS, JD, educational consultant and admissions strategist. “You’ll meet lots of people who think and do things differently, but there is only one you.”
8. Get to know your academic advisors—srsly
Whether you want to switch majors, switch schools, or anything in-between, advisors are basically your BFF—make sure that you’re proactive about reaching out! “If you’re not taking advantage of college counselor services throughout your program, you’re doing yourself a disservice,” says Elaine Rubin, senior contributor and communications specialist at Edvisors. “College counselors can help you get access to the resources you need and help you start to develop goals after graduation.”
9. Related: make connections with your professors!
This is one of the times when going the extra mile as a student really makes a difference. “Connections in college are especially important when you search for your first job,” says Karen Southall Watts, author of Success in College. “Not only can your instructors and other support staff give you the heads up on opportunities,” she says, “they can provide character references for you too—very useful when you’ve got a short resume with few former bosses to contact.”
10. You can totally reinvent yourself
No one knows if you were an introvert in high school or the most popular cheerleader in the history of popular cheerleaders. If you want to shed your past and start over new, this is the place to do it. “For many, college is the time where you need to find a way to fit into a completely new community, and search for social group of friends,” says Rubin. “This is a perfect opportunity to learn who you are and understand your likes and dislikes. Chances are you won’t become a completely new person—you’ll become a more evolved person.” But a word of caution: make sure you're balancing that desire to start over with maintaining your authentic self.
11. Two words: study! abroad!
I try to live that "no regrets" life, but, uh, this is a biggie. Here's what happened: I had never even been on a plane—I didn’t have a passport!—so the idea of flying across the world alone was terrifying. I thought that by studying abroad, I’d miss out on a semester of internship possibilities. So when I found out that nothing in the curriculum aligned with my major, I stayed home. “Students who attend study abroad trips are enriched with the experience of new places, new cultures, new food, and new ways of living,” says Andrew Selepak, PhD, a media professor at the University of Florida.
Listen, I had FOMO before that was even a thing. I was the only person in my friend group who stayed behind. And while I did have a great internship, it didn’t compare to the experience I could have been having. Don’t repeat my mistake!
12. You should live off campus for at least one semester
Confession: I never learned how to budget in college. Even though I had a part-time job throughout my four years, I just spent whatever I earned. When I moved off-campus with friends, I started to have some real-life experience with money.
Aside from learning to cook, I had to budget my paychecks for rent, utilities, and groceries. “At the start of the year, you need to make a plan about how much money you will have to spend for your everyday life expenses,” says Rubin. Basically, it's how-to-be-an-adult boot camp.
You Might Also Like
Solve the daily Crossword
