University of Arizona Top Questions

As a college student giving advice to my high school self, you would think the best suggestions would be academically related. However, no matter how much you prepare yourself for college, there are just some things in life that will hold you back from succeeding to the best of your ability. It is the people you love most and the things you value at the moment that seem to determine your decision making, but remember its your life not theirs. Do not hold back on your dreams because you are relying on the boy who promised you forever. Your high school love life will not last in college! I almost failed first semester because I could not manage school work and relationship drama. Do not be afraid to go out of state just because you will miss your friends. I made that mistake and learned the hard way that friends come and go. Do not let your friends pressure you into anything you are not comfortable with. I watched my best friend go from an innocent sweetheart to a party animal who flunked and choose drugs over me. Choose what is best for you, not what everyone else thinks!

If I were to give my former self advice the first point would be to have confidence in yourself. You are smarter than you allow your self to be. Life is not all about having fun, sometimes you have to work really hard to achieive what you want. I would also tell my former self to not believe what everybody tells you about life. Not everyone is looking out for your best interest. The best way to figure out what your purpose in life, is to go out and experience life as much as possible and your true passion will become evident at some point.

Dear Past Me, College is hard work. It is nothing like High School, where every thing you need to know is given to you. You have to be able to discover things for yourself and you have to study and prepare for test and classes. Do not procratinate on anything prepare, Prepare, PREPARE! Do things in advance get a head start when its given. In prepareing learn how to study it makes preparing much easier. I know you are thinking that you are prepared for whats to come becasue you are far to confident, but step outside yourself and take what I am telling you serisouly. College is FAR more challengeing than you have anticipated, but if you learn to prepare you will be successful. with love, Your Future Self

Take a deep breath and relax; take things one step at a time. The stereotypes that typically terrify high school students aren't true. Sure, the coursework and atmosphere of college is entirely different, but it isn't anything to be scared of. The professors aren't tyrants, they ease you into the class and are very reasonable if anything needs to be worked out -- even with the large amount of students. The new layout and "feel" of university life will be rewarding and exciting. It will be thrilling and new. So relax and enjoy the new chapter in your life. Make the most of it.

There are a multitude of obvious things I would tell myself as a naive high school senior. The most crucial would be to not be intimidated by college lectures and to go to more lecture reveiws if offered and to go to the professors office hours. The most critical thing that I would advise myself to do is to create a good student, professor relationship that can help futher my education and understanding of classroom material. Especially being a microbiology major it is extrememly important to pick the minds of the professors because a lot of the time it takes a special understanding of how each class is taught to acheive an A. I also now know that choosing my social life over studies is the most basic of mistakes, but as a college freshmen it the easiest mistake to make. I would tell myself to maintain social balance and avoid temptation to go out with friends when I should take more time on homework or studying. All in all I would emphasize to myself to continue to make choices that benefit my education and to always weigh the importance of my decisions.

I would tell myself that just becasue senior year drags on seemingly forever that the end is in sight and that college will be here before you know it so plan for it. Apply for as many scholarships as you can and look at the relationships you have with your classmates and close any loopholes you feel you might have in your high schoo social life because after graduation, they are almost impossible to fix.

Hello me from the past, I am here to tell you to be careful about listening to some advisors... consult not only one. Do never stop taking mathematics classes. Also, you can take a college class or two while in high school (so do it!), and take off some hours from work. When at Pima, make sure to take as many classes from Dr. Pitucco as you can, he is awesome! For the Fall semester of 2012 make sure to abandon your job before this starts... it will get too hard to keep both things simultaneously... it will be time to dedicate yourself to just get your classes done. Also, volunteer whenever you can and try to get involved into internships. Apply for more scholarships and save the money, there will be times of need. You have done great so far, but make sure to keep being respectful to all your professors not only in the way you act with them, but in the way you let them know that indeed you think their class is important and you want to be in them. You know it, but they do not. Keep it up!

Most advice given to high school students seems to fit neatly into a few categories: study hard, apply early, and get involved in extracurricular activities. However, if I had the ability to give my high school self, or any other high school student, advice, it would simply be this: know yourself. Every person has unique abilities, talents, interests and personalities. These traits define a person in every way, including where they should attend college and what they should study. In high school I applied for and was accepted to numerous colleges, then faced the challenge of choosing one to attend. That difficult decision came down to me analyzing myself; my hobbies, dreams, goals and personality, and selecting the school that matched me the best. While that choice involved turning down several Ivy League schools to attend a state school, it was the best choice I ever made. Too many people chose schools based solely on name, only to become unhappy upon discovering that those schools fail to offer them what they want. I am happy at school, yet see many who aren’t because I, unlike them, took the time to know myself.

If I could go back and talk to my high school self, the advice I'd give to myself is never-ending. I would definitely tell myself to take my education more seriously, such as developing study habits that work and attempting to actually learn the material being taught to me. I didn't take the material taught to me in high school seriously and as a result, going into college I lacked so many important learning habits that all my peers from around the world possessed! Needless to say, my first semester of college was rough. I would tell myself not to stress over little matters, and to save the stress for college, because stress in college is practically inevitable! I don't think I enjoyed high school enough, so I would tell myself to love life and to learn to love myself also. I know having self-confidence sounds like a silly lesson to learn, but when you go off on your own, you have only yourself to rely on, and sometimes it could get overwhelming and maybe even lonely! So it's important to believe in yourself; it's the only way I got through it.

If I could go talk to myself as a senior in High school I would first advise to myself to apply to more scholarship than I did during those days. College is not what I was expecting the cost of living on campus is exuberant and it is almost impossible to stay debt free from debt to go to school. I would advise myself to visit my teacher more which would have help me in college because in college office hours is very important and it would help me to known which question to ask. The transition was not easy for me in the sense that additional help is often requiring for me to achieve the grade that I wanted. Another advice is time management. In high school, every day was planned to me by my others but in college I find out that I have to manage my own time and I have to make decisions by myself.