...Or college, whatever you want to call it. All of you who are/were in post-secondary schools, I want to hear about what your experience is/was like! What did you study, what did you do for fun, are you happy with your education? Tell it all!

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I'm finishing my math college now. Well, its pretty much like high school, with assholes as well as cool people. The major difference: youre doing something that you like and youre not forced to study subjects you hate.

Since here we have cegep to discard a lot of those jerks, for me university was wayyyyy much better. I study things I like, I meet and get along with a lot of people. And mostly MOSTLY everyone seem more serious in their school life. I'm studying game making, in cegep I was in communication (eg cinema). People are willing to give you advice, help you at things and take critism and take pleasure of it. Hell before I was yelled at when I said things like "I think this scene should have been more blue instead of orange since the character is very cold". Man those were the baaaad days. Now it's more, "thanks for the advice! (try) Hey your right/ nah I don't think it's better".Oh but don't go think we only study. We are just more balanced about it. Also, in university I learned to critic without the other person feeling like he's being attacked. So it's good too!

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I'm going to start my final year of a Computer Science degree on the 23rd. It's been pretty good so far; haven't had the 'typical' University experience as I study in central London, but for me it's more about the subject content anyway as opposed to the 'wicked nights out'. End of the day, I'm at University to study something I'm interested in and maybe get a job afterwards...things are looking good in both areas as I already have a good set of grades and solid work experience under my belt - just hope I can carry on at the same level next academic year.

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I'm actually in my last high school year, so I don't know how it is, but I'm really looking forward to it. You know, I'm very enthusiastic about all that university stuff, but I'm not so sure about what career I'll choose right now and I've seen so many people complaining things like: "I'm not satisfied with my college, I should've chosen something else." I'm thinking about... I dunno, maybe I should wait a little more? It's not like I'm in a hurry to go to college exactly next year or anything.

Glad to see you're all having good uni experiences. Mine's been filled with uncertainty on my end. I've considered just packing it in on several occasions over the past couple of years, and I wish I'd waited til I was certain what I wanted to do with my life before just picking Physics because it sounded interesting. Having to deal with the messy breakup of two of my former, rather emotional, flatmates alongside these doubts certainly didn't help any. That said, first year was quite possibly my favourite year of any education I've had.
That said, I have met some new people it feels like I've known for years, which is always nice. I don't know how my life would've panned out differently if I'd postponed going into uni, or if I'd gone down a completely different path with my studies, but my point is this: Make sure you really want to do what you're going there to do. If you're as indecisive as me, that's going to be hard. And if it's getting

Sorry to bring this topic on a downer, but if I could go back and kick myself into doing things differently I would.

I know the feeling, Hylian. Picked Chemical Engineering and studied it for a year before dropping out because it was overall a shitty thing to study. Am much better off now with my CS course.

On the subject about less positive University experiences, the worst thing about mine so far's been my limited social circle. I'm not interested in any of the societies to consider branching out, and I'm even less fond of random parties and shit. It's a lose-lose situation.

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Apologies for the necra-bump but this is probably better than creating a new thread for the same thing.

So, I'm currently in my 5th year of University - 6th if you include my work placement - studying a degree that was meant to take 4 years to complete. :P My course is Bachelor of Multimedia / Bachelor of Science, and covers multimedia development, computer science, software engineering, and is basically a course for preparing students to work in the video game development industry.

As for why I haven't graduated yet, well, it's a bit of a long story. The general gist is that when I first started, I was a terrible student and didn't know how to properly study and organise myself (I was always one of those smart-alec kids that could start an assignment at 2am the night before it is due and still get an A+.) So yeah, I ended up failing a few units due to not knowing how to manage time for projects that actually require time, and I'm still learning how to do those things better. I also, as said before, added a year to my course by doing a work placement, which was basically 12 months of full time, paid work in the industry that also got credited to my course, which was great and I'm still thankful for having that experience because I learnt so much from it.

As for whether I like it or not, well, I had a terribly stressful year last year. I ended up failing a unit because I didn't manage my time as well as I could alongside my final-year, 'Capstone' project, despite the fact that I really tried to (I kept a diary, scheduled study times, took a lesser study load, etc). I've been reflecting heavily on whether I'm really cut out for the games biz, which is kinda heartbreaking considering I've wanted to do it since I was really young. I mean, I'm confident in my skills as an artist, programmer, designer, etc, but sometimes it just feels like I'm not good enough, especially now that I'm probably the last person to graduate from my original year.

Anyway, at the moment I'm taking a summer class so that I don't have as many classes during the proper first semester this year. I really want to focus and do well, even if I don't really believe I can. I was originally planning on finishing mid-year, but because of the unit I failed last year I need to add another semester just for one subject. :(

Tl;dr: I study video game development but have had a few hiccups along the way which makes me think that maybe I'm not good enough.

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I studied literature for a year, it was mostly for fun because I absolutely love literature. I had fun, met a lot of nice people and so on. I had been studying courses that felt far too easy the years before, since I needed to pick up some things after a year of illness, so I finally felt stimulated so to speak.

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I've been waffling between majors since the dawn of time. I just can never feel 100% sure about which subject area I'd like to focus in. I've been considering Chemistry for the longest of out any of them, but I'm not a fan of chem labs AT ALL and so I'm not sure if that'd be smart to pursue. So then I consider Physics, and although I know I'd be capable of doing it, I still feel daunted by the idea. I always felt like Chemistry was supposed to be 'my thing' and I wonder if shifting it to Physics if it would be a mistake.

And on random days when I want to do neither of those, I consider studying Math but what the hell do you even do with that degree? To me, if one was set on studying Math then they should just study Physics since it's practically the same but with more job-related purposes but.... You see how I go in circles.

I just want to deciiiiiide.

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My brother did his undergrad degree in Applied Mathematics and is now doing a Masters in Education so he can teach Mathematics at a high (University) level. Not sure if he plans on doing a PhD but it wouldn't surprise me.

Math degrees can be useful in a lot of places because it teaches you the fundamentals to a lot of different fields, particularly in the sciences. Some graduates might find end up in analysis roles for law firms and banks, working for gambling companies, work in education, going into research, or might even find a specialist role they like and go into that.

So yeah, there are definitely some really good uses for it, it just that people don't realise how it can be applied to the real world.

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