The University of Texas at San Antonio Top Questions

?So what made you decide to go to college after all this time?? My younger self asks. ?To start off with? I would say, ?College is a very different experience than high school. The subjects you study are important but just as important is the experience of just being there. It is a new environment controlled greatly by you. The longer I am there the more subjects I find I am interested in and it becomes harder and harder to focus on one path. There are so many wonderful opportunities available to me that if I could take everything I am interested in I would be there forever. Even at my age I can feel myself soaking up knowledge and growing intellectually by the day. It has been amazing and it is a great feeling. If you never go to college you will never know what you are missing. You could very easily go through life without knowing the value of the college experience. It really cannot be truly explained, it has to be experienced. College is an incredibly valuable experience, and you do not want to miss out on it?.

I would tell myself to start saving money because books are expensive. I would also tell myself to study a lot more.

I would tell myself to not slack off so much in college like I have been, learn as much as you can in high school because in college its the same exact material except more in depth, harder and alot more boring. I would also tell myself to do as well as I can in school because my grades and future depends on it.

College can be great. You are in control of almost all the aspects of your learning. Don't stress too much now because you have more time than you think. My advice would be to use this energy you have to plan everything. Even if you don't know what you want to do with your life plan what you do know. Set some short-term and long-term goals and write down steps you need to take to achieve each. This way no matter if you take a semester off or work three jobs your freshman year you have an idea of what you are doing and eventually want to do. The best advice I think I can give you is to figure out what you want to take away from college. You can do this by volunteering for different organizations that do things you are interested in. This is the best way to figure out what you really like. Also, give yourself variety. Finding out what you might be interested in and what your passion is are two different things. Seek and conquer; and you will find yourself involved and making the most out of your education.

I would tell myself, "Whatever you do..... do NOT wait a year to go to school!!! You will get caught up in doing nothing and will not want to go back to school. You have to stay focused and believe that you can do pretty much anything if you set your mind to it. The world is your canvas, and you paint your life the way you want it. Don't let people with negative thoughts get you down.. try harder and prove them wrong! Your dreams are not crazy, stupid, or unlikely. They are just jealous that you know what you want to do with your life."

Being a high school senior is bittersweet. As a student, you are probably taking the easiest classes, and enjoying your senior year to the fullest extent. During my four years of high school , I was involved in many organizations and honor societies in my school and was even part of the varsity tennis team. Even as a senior, I thought that if college was like this, it would be a breeze. What a rude awakening I would have in store for me. As I am writing this, I am starting my second semester at a four year university. I wish I could go back to my senior high school me and tell myself to not be lazy! Instead of people constantly reminding you to do this and that, college forces yourself to be responsible for everything. Even an easy class can become hard if one does not have the discipline and the responsibility to study and work hard. I would tell myself to remember that this is the real deal and there is no room for screw ups starting from teh very beginning.

I would tell myself to continue to work at your fullest potential and dont let anything get in the way of your dreams, you are not as far away from them as you may think. Anything is possible as long as you put your mind to it.

In high school, I was very pessimistic about college life because I assumed it would be no different from high school. If I could go back in time and talk to myself as a high school senior, I would reassure myself that college will be a completely new and exciting experience. I would tell myself to be more prepared than I was and not view my classes with an arrogant or indifferent eye because college will undoubtedly be more academically difficult than high school, which I was not prepared for at the time. Also, the students i meet in college will be exponentially more open-minded and experienced than high school and not to just listen to them but learn from them as well. I would share this same advice with myself regarding my future professors because they will leave heavy impressions on my mind and decisions I eventually make. More than anything else, I would tell myself to skip over the big debate of choosing my major and simply choose English Literature from the beginning; surely, even as a high school senior, I will be able to understand the sense of that choice.

After seeing my first bill for attending college, I thought that this was only the first semester and I was already in quite a bit of debt. To this day, I have wished I could go back and put the forth the effort of applying for every scholarship and grant that was available to me. I have told my younger brother and friends still in high school to not make the mistake I did. I tell them to apply for anything they can. There is free money out there that is just for the taking; all the donors ask is that you put forth the effort. I now know the bills will only get higher, so I continue to hunt for every opportunity such as these to help pay for my college education. Regardless of the amount, a college student like myself knows that after seeing that tuition bill, every little bit helps.

I would tell myself to not be afraid to be who I really am. I was always afraid of showing people the person I truly am but since I came here, I have this mantality of not caring what people think. I wake up everyday happier and I'm laughing all the time. I just wished I wasn't afraid to show my true colors because i would have been so much happier during my senior year. I would also tell myself to apply for more scholarships!! Which is super important. I had to take out so much loans and I want to prevent that from happening again because I don't want to be in that much debt when i graduate. I'm glad that i went through it though because now I can guide my brother through his first year of college, I want him to learn from my mistakes.