In Steve Pavlina’s 10 Tips For College Students his first tip is to answer the question, “Why am I going to college?” He says,
Many college students really don’t have a clear reason for being there other than the fact that they don’t know what else to do yet. They inherit goals from family and peers which aren’t truly their own. That was how I started college. Is this you as well?
This is not me, but I think it is how I was raised. I think this is how a lot of us are raised. We go to school, we get older, we get jobs, and we go to college because that’s what we’ve always been told to do. I’ve just assumed since I was in elementary school that when I graduated from high school I would be going to college.
Although my parents (who might be reading my blog now, along with my brother and sister :|) have urged me to go to college (especially recently) this isn’t why I’m going.
I’m going because I want to be a web designer(/developer) and although the schools are way behind in this area, there are still some things I can learn from a college. For example, I don’t know Flash, at all. I have it on my computer and I’ve only opened it once. I don’t like Flash but it’s something I want to learn so that if I needed to I could make simple things in Flash and make edits to Flash files. It’s a skill that many web designers have and some depend upon so I want to atleast know the basics of it. Other things like PHP, Photoshop, other programming languages, databases, etc are things I know a little about but are things I should know well or atleast be familiar with.
College can teach me the basics and I can expand my knowledge from there.
But will I get a degree? I don’t know. To get a degree I have to take a lot of classes that I feel will be a waste of time. Some of the classes won’t have anything to do with my career choice but will still be interesting classes. It’s everything else that I don’t want to take.
School starts on August 20th and I’m all registered for my first semester. I’m taking 5 classes. 4 are computer related and the other is English 101. I don’t know how long I’ll be in school but I plan to go for atleast a year (maybe 2) no matter what.
4 Comments
3 things for you matt:
1. Enjoy college, as it goes by quick.
2. If you are majoring in CS, don’t take a lot of computer related classes early on: (C++ to be exact) or you might just get burnt out around your junior year as I did. I changed majors and minored in CS.
3. Don’t expect to learn a lot of valuable material that will be used out-of-class. Most of the experience I got from college was theory and design. Everything else was learned at my job.
I didn’t have the luxury of learning web-based programming languages such as PHP, CF, or ASP. I went to a college that had a devoted CS department, but nothing web related at all. So take advantage of that.
And about your idea on “having to take a lot of classes that I feel will be a waste of time”- This molds you into a well-rounded intellectual that might be able to rattle off trinitrotoluene’s empirical formula at some random party. (which is C7H5N3O6 btw,) Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but I think its pretty cool to have random useless facts stored in your head for a rainy day.
And about your degree, get it even if its just for the luxury of telling someone you graduated college and have a BS degree in whatever. It really does feel good to tell someone that accomplished that. Even if it means you have to take “stupid” classes.
Okay, so that a little more than 3 things, but college is a new beginning for the rest of your life. I hope I gave you an outside opinion, that has been through college just 1 year ago. Goodluck, and enjoy it.
Posted by Lewis on Aug 1, 2006.
oh and nice site
I surfed my way over here from cssmania.com
Posted by Lewis on Aug 1, 2006.
Thanks Lewis! I’ve been told to go to college and “take a lot of classes that I feel will be a waste of time” for the experiences and to help me be a well-rounded person before. The problem is, I can’t see how college will help me do that right now. But when I’m actually in college maybe I’ll see that.
I’m glad you like the site!
Posted by Mattbob on Aug 1, 2006.
Having a degree will help you in competing with those who do have one.
The way I think of it is this: if your job requires you have a suit, you buy a suit. If your job requires you to have a degree, you get a degree.
Getting a job (or creating your own business) is a whole different story.
Posted by Pierre Lourens on Aug 1, 2006.