University of Colorado Boulder Top Questions

Of all the things I could tell my high school self, it wouldn't be about managing money or making sure I get all my homework done on time. I would tell myself to get out, have some fun, and make some friends. I went to the Colorado Springs campus of CU last year and had absolutely no social life. I went to school, went to work, went home, slept, an started the cycle over again. While I thought that's all I needed at the time, I have since realized how much I was actually missing. In Boulder, I have gotten involved in various clubs, including Kendo, Campus Crusade, and PSA. I have also found time to go out and have fun with my room mates and friends. My school work has not suffered, I'm training for a job related to my field, and I'm happier over all than I used to be. Getting out and expieriencing new things has done wonders to my self-confidence and happiness. I would have definitely started doing that earlier had I known then what I know now.

Dear Christopher, It is with regret that I am to inform you that coming out of your freshman year, you will find yourself with two problems: (1) your grade point average is 2.5 and (2) you chose the wrong major. Coming into college, you had hopes of majoring in business with dreams of going to law school afterwards. After your freshman year, you found out that you loved politics more than business and with the economic downturn, you discovered that you can still have your own business regardless of your major and do not have to follow in your father's and brother's footsteps. The 2.5 gpa is a result of the difficulty you will experience in your business classes. It is for these reasons that I recommend you begin by majoring in political science, but moreso that you care not so much how much your grades are, but about learning and getting out of college what you want to. Despite your mistakes, you have and will buy various books from all political, philosophical, economical, historical, and religious perspective and teach yourself more than what you could ever learn in the classroom and from your degree.

GET YOUR GRADES UP! High school is so much easier. Take a bunch of classes. Grades. Study. Participate.

The advice I would give is to take as many AP classes as you can. I really felt like these prepared me for college-type work. Even if you don't do as well in them, they are still weighted. Also, the skills you learn in taking tests and writing essays are skills that will make you successful in college. Had I not had learned these skills earlier, college would have been much more difficult.

I would say, "Haley, make sure you mentally prepare yourself for the impact of multiple people's mentalities, and keep an open mind to different ways of life because you can never be too sure about how other people were brought up." Being in college, you learn quickly how people are, as far as comfort zones go, and you want to make sure you learn everyone's comfort zone because you want to know which people are the serious college students and which people could still use another year out of college. Knowing that fact, will quickly help you to find out what "type" of person you are. So you don't have to waste your time, your professor's time, or your fellow peer's time.

Remember that you are not the only one going into college confused about what you want to do in life. There are those lucky few who know right off the bat what majors they want to go into, but many times 1, 2, even 3 years down the road they change their mind. I want you to know that your time in college is special and you shouldn't take it for granted. Of course, you should have fun, make friends, join clubs, be silly but remember that there is no other time in your life when you will have the opportunity have school be your main worry. It's ok to make mistakes and not regret them, but being in college you should be aware enough to know which mistakes are ok to make now, so that they don't affect the rest of your life. College is a time to discover yourself, it is not high school where you worried about what other people thought of you. In college, you need to worry about whether you will love/respect/appreciate yourself 5, 10, 20 years down the road. Love college, love you, love the rest of your life.

I would have paid attention more in english because writing essays in college is much harder than it is in high school

One of the things that I would tell my self as a senior in high school is that it never hurts to socialize. As a freshman in college it would be a good idea to socialize a lot more and worry less about what people thought about you do to the activities or kind of person that you are. Socializing more really leads to good friendships and even further than that it can put you as an individual into better scenarios such as job situations or more acquaintances that make your life more fun and exciting.

If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to look around and realize that I am not alone. The biggest fear in the transition of going from a small suburban high school, to the largest public institution in my state, was the sheer masses of students I would be competing against. Because of this I did not initially continue into my current university, instead I took on a job at a local rocky mountain bank, at their urban Denver branch to further expand my perception on life. After one year of work, I was enlightened and absolutely excited at the thought of continuing my invaluable education. Working in corporate Denver, being exposed to the banking industry and entry-level management, introduced me to the necessity of synergy. In some ways, our education system forces an individualist approach on knowledge, when in the business environment, doing tasks on you own is doing you and your organization an injustice. After changing my ignorant high school attitude from thinking I could do everything on my own, smilingly impossible tasks became so attainable, thus shifting my fear of college into a giant opportunity to promote my success.

As a high school senior I was scared, stressed, and nervous. I had no idea what the future would hold for me. I just wish that someone could have told me that everything will work out. During your whole high school career you have built up a reputation of high standards and good integrity. You're not going to change your future by nit picking at each individual word you type in your college application essays. Be true to yourself and don't change anything that you've already been doing just because you're at the end of high school. Everything will work out, and you will be happy.