Off-Topic: College Education

Being from Canada many of will probably not recognize any of the Universities I’ll name, but I’m going to write this anyhow.

My undergrad was at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, which is about 4 hours north of Toronto. I went there because it was my home town and didn’t want to pay to live out of town. Eventually finished with a BA in Economics.
Just completed my Master’s degree (Economics) at York University in Toronto. Went there because they gave me the most money, and it was relatively close to home so I could visit on a regular basis.

I went to Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY and earned a BSChE degree. Tell your kid to be an engineer. It’s not glamorous, but you can almost always find a decent job with an engineering degree, and does the US ever need engineers.

Did my undergraduate degree at Wilfrid Laurier University, a somewhat smallish school in Waterloo, Ontario - the town most known for being the home to Blackberry maker’s Research in Motion. Graduated with a BBA. Loved the experience, inside and out of the classroom. Loved the community atmosphere that the school had.

Completing my Master’s degree, at the University of Waterloo, just down the street from where I did my undergraduate degree.

Went to a liberal arts college called Transylvania, got kicked out for being a stupid frat boy, finished my bachelor’s in philosophy at the University of Tennessee, summa cum laude. I actually think that the quality of the faculty at the big state school was far superior to that at the liberal arts school, even in my ‘liberal arts’ field. The professors were more engaged, the larger community made many things possible that would have been impossible in a smaller place. Went off the next year to a Ph.D. program at the City University of New York.

College most certainly helped me grow as a person, sometimes by allowing me to make rather serious practical mistakes. I tutor kids on their SAT’s in the NYC/CT area to help pay bills, and the stress placed on these kids to get another 50 points on their test scores, to take one more AP course and get five more meaningless lines on their young CV’s, is enormous, and a bit misguided, I think. But I believe deeply that the classical “liberal arts” education, learning how to learn, is a door to a better life. I think the best thing college gave me was a sense of how to do that, to study history for history’s sake, philosophy for philosophy’s sake, not as a means to an end but as an end in itself.

in Cheney, WA. I got my BAE in English - Secondary Education. I went there because it is the cheapest 4 year university in the state and close to where I grew up in Spokane. I didn’t have to pay for a place to live because I stayed with family. I started as a Biology major but switched to English because I liked my English professors better. I paid my way through school by working as a clerk in a law enforcement office. I began a Med program there but never finished. My university experience, while valuable and necessary for my profession as a teacher, wasn’t useful without the knowledge brought from actually working in a classroom.

I went to James Madison University (runner up in the Chapel Hill region this year!). Studied Mathematics and Economics, neither of which are related to my current occupation (Database Consulting). Absolutely matured me; i went from a naive hs kid to an eager college graduate looking to start a career straight away.

If your kid wants to play baseball, I would suggest any of a host of small Div-III schools that would virtually guarantee playing time. With so few scholarships if he’s got any talent you can probably cut a deal w/ the coach of a larger university to grease entrance into the school in exchange for not costing the coach his scholarship spots. (I did not play for JMU but many on my college team were contemporaries on my semi-pro/adult teams of the time). Or, if you’re very wealthy upper-end private schools in low-end division 1 conferences (here in DC: George Washington and Georgetown are two perfect examples) can almost guarantee your kid the college baseball experience.

My advice for college (if the kid isn’t planning on wanting to play baseball) is to absolutely go to a “name” school. My school is not well known outside the east coast, and does me no good when I go to interviews out of state. Meanwhile you needed just a GED to get into a large number of state schools (West Virginia U for example) yet everybody knows that school and there’s alumni groups everywhere. College Recruiters may know that Williams is a fantastic school but after your first job, you’re getting hired by your eventual manager, who won’t know that a major state school isn’t nearly as good as a good liberal arts school from new england.

So don’t send your kid there. Go to a school with a state name in it, in a major football conference, in the south so its warm all the time and your kid isn’t tromping to school in 3 feet of snow in Wisconsin. Trust me, he’ll thank you for it later on.

I think the snippet below would very much depend on your postgraduate circumstances and aspirations. I’m friends with plenty of Williams alumns who seem to do just fine, including on the West Coast. As deezle points out above, there are some post-college programs and/or employers where an average performance at a superb school will indeed be looked at more favorably than above average at a lesser one.

My advice for college (if the kid isn’t planning on wanting to play baseball) is to absolutely go to a "name" school. My school is not well known outside the east coast, and does me no good when I go to interviews out of state. Meanwhile you needed just a GED to get into a large number of state schools (West Virginia U for example) yet everybody knows that school and there’s alumni groups everywhere. College Recruiters may know that Williams is a fantastic school but after your first job, you’re getting hired by your eventual manager, who won’t know that a major state school isn’t nearly as good as a good liberal arts school from new england.

did you go to college, and if so, where?

Yes, University of Calgary

Studying what?

Political Science/International Relations

Aside from academics, did it help you grow up?

Yes it did (Besides the typical drunken shannanagans). I learned how to live on my own without the Mommy and Daddy backup, I learned how to meet new people (I came from a small town where all my friends I’d basically known since elementary school), I learned how juggle more responsibilities. It was a great experience.

Went to a local state-school (Illinois State University) for my undergraduate degree. Always knew I wanted to get into a numbers-oriented field, and had an aptitude for math and science, but it took 1.5 years to decide what my ‘major’ would really become. Classic underachiever (code for slacker) - too many parties, too many women, too many friends that lived nearby and had similar values, and not enough studies. Thanks to summer classes and some internal drive, I did actually graduate in 4 years, with a degree in physics. The GPA wasn’t the greatest, but I was the first in my family to get a college degree.

Bloomed once I got into graduate school - it was a shocking realization (and yes, I mean this seriously) that if I have an interest in a topic (e.g. major classes) I go all-out; otherwise the effort is, shall we say, half-assed. I’ve since gotten two M.S. degrees (one in physics, the other in astronomy) and after years of hemming and hawing, finally decided to go back to school to get my PhD, in nuclear engineering. Class of 2013 hopeful!

I think what I take away from my experiences so far - and admittedly this is going to sound corny - is that learning and the gathering of knowledge really is a lifelong process, and not just from books or classes. I’ve learned more in 2-hour BS sessions with a professor than I did in some semester-long courses. I had a friend of mine who summed it up well - college teaches you how to study, how to think critically, how to analyze - after that, you get the keys to the library and cram as much as your brain will hold.

Quick side note, John - before the young lad goes off to college (but not just yet), make sure that he watches the following: PCU (1994, w/Jeremy Piven) and if he is at all interested in the physical sciences, Real Genius (1985, w/Val Kilmer). Both films are somewhat dated but provide humorous alternatives to the Animal House stereotype of college (which I also love, BTW). Better yet, have him watch them again after his freshman year, and ask him to point out how many events from the movies that he witnessed in real-life…

I went to the University of New Hampshire for both Undergraduate (BA in English/Minor in Classics) and Graduate (MA in English/Literature pending foreign language requirement) study. I remember being highly disappointed that I did not get into some of the schools I really wanted (namely Middlebury in Vermont and Amherst College in Massachusetts), but I couldn’t be happier with that selection. I can’t say enough about what going to a large state school meant for me. I know a lot of the circle of friends I associate with prefer small liberal arts schools but I loved the amount of people, the variety of courses, the numerous things you could do.

The one thing I would not recommend is going to some other state’s school, like I did. I’m from Massachusetts and probably should have gone to UMass. You’re talking about similar quality in schools, but I spent far more as I was out of state.

I grew up in a small town in central IL. Coming out of high school, I knew I was good with numbers (math was always my best subject), but I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up.

So, I decided to go the JUCO route. I went to class during the day and had a job at night until 9 PM. I pretty much worked my arse off my first two years out of high school. I had, in essence, a double-major between accounting and engineering. After my first year, I decided accounting was the way to go.

I was lucky. The #1 accounting school in the nation at the time was right in my backyard - the University of Illinois. After I graduated from the JUCO, I transferred straight to the U of I’s accounting program. To this day I still refer to those two years as the best two years of my life.

There are so many benefits in going to school. First of all, it gets you out of the house and forces you to be independent. My junior year I lived with 3 roommates in an apartment. My senior year was spent in a 1 bedroom by myself. I learned how to take care of myself better my senior year than anyone does just living in a dorm.

Honestly, I think you have to figure out what your son wants to do. If he’s not sure, I highly suggest going the JUCO route. It is a lot cheaper and you can still get into a quality 4 year school as long as the grades are good. When it comes to picking out that 4 year school, matching what school is good academically in the field of study your son will be majoring in with the campus and environment your son will be comfortable in is the most important part. Don’t force him to go to a big school if he is needy and constantly seeks attention. It is easy to feel like a number at a big school. On the other hand, don’t force him into a small school if he has no problem being a number. Bigger schools are bigger for a reason - they are typically much better academically and will increase his opportunities for his career once he graduates. My career is at the point it is right now thanks to that degree that is on my wall. Like it or not, part of the reason you go to school is to increase your employment opportunities. Just try to make sure it is not the only reason. He’s there to learn about himself every bit as much as he is there to learn about the subject he is studying.

That’s my 2 cents….

I don’t think it matters where really, but I would be wary of any school that has a feel of being very insulated where most people are going to share a similar point of view about life. I don’t really know if too many schools are like that though. People that come out of college with the same view of humanity, morality, and life in general as they had when they entered college, they missed out. Might as well have been going to night school while working full time.

I too went to NWMSU in good ol’ Maryville MO. Perhaps we had some of the same professors? I basically didn’t care where I was going to college at the time and it was cheap and in state. I really enjoyed my experience there though for the most part. Sometimes I wish I had gone to a big-time school but I graduated and somehow managed to use an English degree to get a decent job. Can’t complain.

I went to a couple of community colleges, a couple of state colleges, ended with degree in diagnostic ultrasound.
Right now, I have a son who is a junior, and we have been spending the past few months, and will spend a good part of the summer, making visits to colleges with him. Next weekend, we go to Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo. It has been an interesting journey with him…completely different from my own, as I was too broke to go to school after high school, and went into the military instead (which is how I paid for my college).
I am curious to see what school he chooses….he has the brains/grades/extracurriculars to get into any of the schools he has been exploring. My experience is with state schools, so I wonder what a liberal arts college would be like for him….I am attracted to the idea of small class sizes and greater individual attention, rather than the huge auditorium type classes I had. Calculus with classes of 140 students, or O-chem with more than 200. As I said, it has been an interesting journey.

Decided in my sophomore year in HS that I was going to ND, and that I was going to study Electrical Engineering. Almost chose Penn St over ND when push came to shove, but my older brother smacked some sense into me.

Got on a plane for the first time on my 18th birthday to get from the North Bronx to South Bend. I was the only one of my 7 siblings to go “away” to college.

Found out I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was, but made it through 4 years and have a BS EE. I had to grow up a lot and recognize that I needed to work to get where I wanted to go. I’ve never used the degree in my career, but I do use the well-rounded education I got every day.

I went to Boston University for my undergrad - I wanted to live in Boston (one of my favorite cities) and they gave me a very good scholarship to boot. Got my BA in Marine Science and got to spend two semesters studying at the Marine Biological Laboratory on Cape Cod. I then went to Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan for my PhD in Neuroscience - that was a free ride since you get a stipend if you do a research PhD.

In both cases, I ended up with very little debt and had the opportunity to live in two incredible cities for a very formative part of my life. Personally I think the social experience of college and graduate school is as important as the education and if you can do it without burying yourself in debt, so much the better. Look at good state schools located in great places to live, places your son would be interested in experiencing. If they have a study abroad program, even better. This is the time and opportunity to travel and experience life somewhere else. He should choose wisely and make the most of it. :)

I graduated from SUNY Albany last year with a Bachelors in Sociology. I attended two CCs prior to transferring there. I haven’t found anything since graduation, problematic considering my student loan payments. Luckily, I still have my part-time (quarter-time?) job from college, but I had absolutely no intentions of still being there 13 months after graduation.

My mistake was thinking that having “a” degree would be enough, so I chose a major that didn’t have a reputation for being overly difficult. I had no interest in Sociology but I could usually get into the B range without too much effort. I was also told that in a lot of cases what you major in doesn’t matter because lots of people do things unrelated to what they study in college. I always suspected Sociology was nothing more than BS, but I figured, as long as I have a college degree, I’ll be in good shape.

My advice - don’t go to college unless you know what you want to get out of it. Maybe that isn’t until several years after high school, but it’s right to wait and have a plan than to go at 18 because everyone else is. Have something specific in mind. I never did. It leads to a lot of misery sitting through a lot of courses that aren’t doing anything for you. And you might end up spending 7 years in undergrad not knowing what the heck you’re doing.

I’ll say this, though. Even if someone had a genuine interest in Sociology, it’s a worthless major, especially if you just have a BA. I grossly overrated the importance of having “a” college degree, especially in this economy.

Best piece of advice, just go for the best fit. I nearly went to Buffalo just to be far from home even though they didn’t have an Astronomy major, which I wanted to study. I purely didn’t want to go Stony Brook because my Mom works at the hospital there, but after visiting the campus, I was convinced along with the program.

Just make sure he keeps all options open. The main thing I wish I could’ve done was apply out of state. I very much wanted to go to Arizona State, but I was limited to SUNY from the start (even though I got money, SU and Buffalo were both cheaper). Straight A’s help with the scholarships, but with the economy, you’re not going to have it all covered. If you have good credit, it will really help with loans by the way; it’s kind of hurting right now because we don’t have the best credit so I can’t get a private loan and financial aid didn’t cover everything.

All financials aside, I’m pretty thrilled to move out and experience college.

I have experience at three very different types of schools and believe that the “right school” varies widely from person to person. Money is definitely an issue though as the cost of schooling appears to be increasing exponentially with no sign of slowing down.
I completed my BS from Allegheny College in psychology. Small, private liberal arts school that was absolutely perfect for me. Are there things I didn’t like about it? Sure, it was expensive and it was in a small rural town in northwestern PA. It is a great school, and in my experience, there is no substitute for the undergraduate education a small private liberal arts school provides.
I completed my MS and PhD in experimental psychology from Auburn.Tuition waivers and a stipend make it doable (professional school surely would have caused premature hair loss) Large land-grant state university. In general these schools are “potentially” more fun but the quality of an undergraduate education doesn’t compare to what you would get at an academically competitive, small, private liberal arts school. Many undergrad classes are taught by grad students and standards are often too low from my perspective(as a grad student doing the teaching).
I am currently a postdoc at Duke University which has been a completely different environment. Duke is private, but has a huge presence in professional and graduate schools. Also, doing research in the medical center beats the hell out of psychology departments. I always disliked Duke growing up, but I am falling in love with Durham and all that Duke has to offer (I still will never be a Duke sports fan).

Best baseball program in college baseball.
Headed into my last year of nursing school.

I went to the University of Hartford and graduated in May of 2009. It was well worth the debt I’m in now (plus if I had gone to UConn I would’ve had even more debt!), and I can always brag about being a small-time school with our two biggest sports exports being Jeff Bagwell and Vin Baker (and Earl Snyder who had a nice AAA career for a while).

The one thing these days is that everyone’s going to college, so it’s hard to take what you went for and find out right out of college. I was in for journalism and public relations and came out working the insurance industry with The Hartford (still am as I move down to Boca Raton, FL since my girlfriend is now working for FAU Athletics).

The two things I’ve taken looking back is first of all, I’m going to need to hit up grad school to excel in my future. But more importantly, I really, really found who I was and what I stood for over those four years. There’s no bigger personal development than my four years in college. It was the best time of my life by far and away and has really given me an appreciate for my life and my world and who I am today. Even with $80,000 in debt (estimated after paid off), it was worth being able to create a life path for myself and be happy with knowing my future is bright.

I went to the University of Rhode Island to study fisheries biology (BS and MS). Best decision I could have made in part because as it was my state school the costs was a lot more manageable. I like to think that going there was a huge factor in my growing up and gaining a lot of confidence. Even though it was only about 45 minutes from where I grew up the fact that I lived there allowed enough separation to feel like I was on my own to a certain degree. To me it made it more apparent that it was up to me to accomplish things. It forced me to break from my comfort zone and seek help in classes that were a little more difficult and to find ways of gaining more experience in my field. Normally I would not have sought out someplace at which to volunteer but now did it on several occasions that proved extremely beneficial in getting a job in a rather small field in New England. I was forced to go and make my own opportunities or potentially miss out on being able to do what I wanted to in my life.

It really depends on the student and their career goals. Many students go to college to “discover” themselves which in today’s education system isn’t a great idea. Tuition is more expensive than ever, the culture is more competive than ever, and an incredible amount of work is required. I definitely don’t recommend going to college right after high school unless you know exactly what you want to do for a living and you know how college will help you get there. I’ve seen too many people drop out for any number of reasons, but mostly because they don’t know why they’re there in the first place. Being an undergrad can be great fun, but that’s not why we’re supposed to go.

For what it’s worth, I have a BA from the University of Washington and I currently attend Seattle University School of Law. I chose the schools I did because they offered me the biggest scholarships within my desired geographic area.

I went to Carleton, a small liberal arts college. It was great for me because I was a shy awkward kid and don’t know that I would have done well in a big university environment. I also knew no one there, which was great since I hated high school. It took me along time to come out my shell, but I eventually did. I do know people who were in the same situation who did well at a Big U because they could find their own niche.

I also liked studying a lot of things, so a liberal arts college was great. I really flowered intellectually. Someone who’s more focused would probably be better in a Big U (and certainly better off financially). I eventually went into astrophysics and got my PhD, so I obviously enjoyed education.

I’m finishing up my undergrad at Mizzou and then will move on to Cornell next summer. I am presently double majoring in marketing and management (with a math and finance minor) with the intention of going into Corporate Law. Whether or not this comes to fruition remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt the education is a necessity in my desired field.

The reason I ended up at Mizzou was partly because I am from Kansas City, and partly because my original intention was to go for journalism. As it turned out (and many journalism professors proclaimed this), journalism isn’t an especially strong field at the moment given the decline in print media. When I realized this, I toyed around with several other majors, including film theory, history, and statistical analysis - but I settled on marketing (and subsequently management) because of my interest in how people interact with the economy. The decision for law school came shortly after my introduction to civil law.

At Virginia, I double majored in history and foreign affairs, with a focus on the Middle East and Latin America. At law school at USC, I had a special focus on Constitutional Law.

My choice to go to Virginia was a tough one. I had been accepted at a great Liberal Arts college, Weslyan, had been wait listed at Cornell and had applied around the country. Being from just outside NYC, I would have been surrounded at Weslyan by a lot of students with similar backgrounds as myself, including an older friend whom I had (and have) a great deal of respect. I chose Virginia in part because it would take me to a new part of the country. Can’t say a a few decades later whether that was wise or not. On the one hand, I do think I gained a greater appreciation of perspectives that differ from what was mostly around me growing up. That’s likely helped me as an investigative reporter. In the other hand, I think I likely gained less insight into myself because I was more restrained than I might have been in expressing my own views and making choices that furthered those views.

At USC I found a teacher who actually understand how to write, and more precisely, how to edit one’s writing — up until then, none of my writing professors/teachers could offer real insight about how to correct flaws in sentences, paragraphs or a papers. The USC teacher was actually an English prof the law school borrowed to teach aspiring lawyers how to write — how to bill came more naturally.

All that said, I believe there are more important choices than where to attend college, daily choices about how one applies oneself in all aspects of life, from academics to social development. Good choices in the latter will tend to lead to success and happiness regardless of which college is attended.

My kids are just behind your son, ages 11 and 8, so these questions, for me, are more than merely academic, pardon the pun.

Started undergrad at Ohio Wesleyan University. It was a great school, and really strengthened me academically. I only went there because I received a scholarship, and many of the other students came from much different socioeconomic backgrounds, so I had little in common to build friendships on. The friends I did make were great, and still friends today. But it was a very stressful environment, with little time for extracurricular (like baseball - one of its selling points was DIII school with decent baseball team, but never got to try out because I was too focused on school).
However, I did not finish there, due to some unforeseeable family issues. I finished up at SUNY Plattsburgh back home. Way cheaper, easier, but still some great teachers, and much more opportunity to push myself as an individual. There wasn’t the same pressure, and so I could really start being creative with what I learned.
Final thoughts: it really depends on what you want to study. I think if you want to go into a field with high salaries and a need for a name school, go to a more expensive private college (or if you get a scholarship). Otherwise, go to a cheaper public college, and graduate with less debt. I think any college can have opportunities for personal growth, you just have to be open and willing to go for it.

University of Chicago with a BA in Biology, now working towards a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania.

My advice regarding your son would be that if he doesn’t know exactly what he wants to do, look at schools that have the most options/strong departments. I went to college certain that I wanted to study applied math or statistics, but ended up going through about 5 majors before settling on biology. Being able to pursue all my academic desires, however transient, was definitely one of the most valuable aspects of my college experience. You certainly don’t have to be at a big name school to do this - In fact, from my experience, I’d advise against it. These schools seem to think quite highly of themselves, but it’s not really clear whether the education they provide is of a substantially higher quality. As many other posters have pointed out, there are great professors everywhere.

and UNC Chapel Hill M.Ed in Secondary Science Education.

my freshman year at Seattle University. lovin it

I am a historian (which is why I liked the naval pictures which used to appear on the site) of Britain and the British Empire and so my trajectory is not typical. I graduated from Yale ( a year ahead of Ron Darling) and did my doctorate at Oxford. I have taught at the College of Charleston (a great school for the money and a wonderful place to live—I hated to leave, even if it was for a much better job), the National University of Singapore and now in the United Arab Emirates at the American University of Sharjah.

There are many great options out there, but I am writing to emphasize something else: language training and study abroad. Your son will many more opportunities if he can master a language. In 10 years time there will be many employers who would love someone who can use Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic or Spanish with good English. Unfortunately, Americans continue to fall behind in language training. In both Singapore and here in the UAE the students I teach are at least bilingual. Therefore, in looking forward my recommendation would be to make language training a priority.
A good school will make this possible and I would also encourage one which facilitates study abroad.

Good Luck!

I went to Wisconsin-River Falls (state school, but a small one), and got a BS in journalism. I had trouble adjusting the first couple years, but I got involved with the school paper my junior year and wound up spending three years with the paper and rose to editor-in-chief.

The classroom part of college had minimal value compared to what I learned at the paper. That’s the stuff where you really learn what it’s like having a job, and it’s what I tell employers about and have on my resume. Once you graduate, nobody cares what you did in the classroom.

For anyone looking to go to college and an eye opener for those who are in college or recently graduated from college -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE

Spent most of my time getting drunk, and working marginal manual labor jobs (Christmas Tree lot, road construction traffic flagger, taxes) to acquire said drunk and pay for the portion I didn’t cover with loans & financial aid. It wasn’t till I got out (2009, midst of the recession) and was broke/jobless/sleeping in my truck at times that I kinda grew up. Luckily, I was awake just enough during college to snag an accounting degree and acquire enough credits in the process to sit for the CPA exam. I pretty much had to re-teach myself most of the material to pass, which I am currently in the process of doing.

Would I do it all again?… Probably, but I’d do a few things differently. I do like accounting, though. No 5-7 page papers on crap I don’t care about. Man, I hated those. Also, I didn’t have to kiss the professor’s ass- either you knew the stuff, or didn’t, and it showed on exams.

I transferred into Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations after attending SUNY Binghamton for a year (ILR is a great and affordable program for anyone from NYS… reduced tuition for an Ivy). I think the two biggest things about schools are getting involved in activities (including courses) that you find interesting and engaging in opportunities meant to expand your horizons. I had the opportunity to spend 5 months working at a UN organization in Geneva (for credit) and it was an incredible experience. I always recommend that people take advantage of study abroad experiences if they can swing it.

I went to RPI out of high school for a BSME. Getting an engineering degree from there almost guarantees a job due to its reputation. I suggest doing the same thing my dad did and nudge your kid into a ‘real’ degree from a reputable school where he will have a job coming out. My dad was a traveling salesman, and did not want the same thing for me. I got into VT and UMD, but I chose the smaller school with the more ‘niche’ reputation. I kind of regret not going to a big state school with all the hot tail and huge football games.

However, I suggest that you suggest that your kid takes a year off of school to travel, see how other people/cultures live, and grow up a bit.

I graduated from Kenyon College - a small liberal arts college in Ohio - in ‘83. I had a National Merit Scholarship which made it affordable, but I could never afford it now, or send my son (who is 14, just finished his first year of high school, and like John’s son is active in martial arts. In my son’s case, Krav Maga).

I graduated in four years with a B.A. in English and was able to eventually parlay that into a career that has involved magazine editing, book editing and writing (I’ve published three books). But I’ve also worked in HR so I have some sense of the how people reading the resumes look at an education.

For myself, Kenyon was perfect. It broke me down intellectually, which was hard, but I really came out of there with a thorough base in Western culture from philosophy to literature. Kenyon is also famous for producing writers and critical writing is emphasized in every major. Getting an education was never about job prospects - that’s really not the approach at a school like Kenyon anyway. It was a very challenging academic environment, difficult but rewarding. And the friendships I formed there have lasted my whole life.

Having worked at HR in some large law firms, I can vouch that the quality of your school makes a big difference to your future employers. It’s not enough to just have have a degree, as the quality of education varies considerably. I worked at one place that almost exclusively hired from Ivy league and Ivy equivalent (Stanford, Chicago etc.) schools.

Of course, in many disciplines the school doesn’t matter at all, including the writing and editing I’ve done. The only thing that matters to an editor is the quality of your writing and your ability to get it in on time. That said, the contacts you make at an upper echelon school can make a big difference.

My approach in applying to college was to apply to a small liberal arts college, take a shot at an Ivy League (Columbia) and a fall back position with a large state university (FSU). I got into all three, but Kenyon was definitely the best choice for me. I was far too young to be in NYC by myself and would not have been challenged (or changed) as much at FSU. (A good school, but there’s no way it could’ve matched the intimacy of Kenyon where I had ready access to full professors, instead of TAs. Things like that.)

I have a bachelor’s degree in history from University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC, not to be confused with University of Chicago). I started out at Northern Illinois University for two years. NIU wasn’t so much my first choice as it was my only choice - I barely made a C average in HS and got in on the strength of my ACT score being exceptionally high among applicants. Ended up having to take some time off and transferred to UIC, which worked for me as I was able to save money by commuting from my folks’ place. Between 3+ hours of commuting every day and working nearly full-time to pay for school, I only graduated with a GPA of about 3.35, although I had a great reputation among the professors in my program and sterling recommendations.

I was originally planning on using my degree to pursue a doctorate in my area of interest (social history of mental illness and psychological trauma) or a law degree, and I even had a professor who wanted me to return to UIC to do a doctorate under her. In the end neither seemed totally right for me, as getting a job in liberal arts academia is obscenely difficult and despite my interest in the challenges of law, I was totally turned off by the fact that every lawyer I spoke to absolutely despised their line of work. Instead, on the advice of a trusted professor, I decided to go into Library and Information Science. I took a year off to save up money, then studied for a few days and pulled off a 1440 on my GRE, so combined with my recommendations I was able to compensate for my relatively low GPA. I ended up at the University of Texas, where after another leave of absence I’m focusing on librarianship and health information resource management.

I’d say that while a lot of my maturation as a person has happened outside of school, academics have definitely helped to set the circumstances in which I have developed. My academic performance was always erratic, with periods of exceptionally high performance mixed in with periods of personal difficultly and disinterest in school. I was always bored and tended to lose focus on things very quickly, even with my best efforts to develop effective study skills. Personality-wise I was very melancholic, uninterested in personal success, and prone to completely disabling bouts of severe depression. My last bout occurred last year, and this time the near-total demise of my academic and professional life was the impetus I needed to seek out professional help. I learned a lot about myself, including the fact that a lot of my struggles even in the best of times were classic signs of ADD. Since receiving therapy and medication to help with my ADD and depression, my life has done a complete 360 from where I’ve been since I was a little kid.

As far as advice I can give from personal experience goes, I’d say that it really helps to focus on the journey, not the destination, cliche as that is. I’ve had a wide range of experiences with academics already, from child prodigy who was on track to graduate from high school by my mid-teens to college dropout to successful grad student back to college dropout. Despite my highs and lows, for many years I was under the impression that the degree(s) would make the person. I’m not all that far from 30 and it’s only recently that I realized that I’m completely entitled to do whatever I want and write about whatever I want without the implicit or explicit blessing of my elders. Urge your son to look at school as a something that he does while following his passions rather than a passion unto itself, I think that makes things much easier for all involved in the end.

I go to Siena College, in Albany. Personally, the small school environment is awesome, depending on what you feel is the best decision. I miss the big school atmosphere, but I plan to fill that in Grad school.

Not something most of you can relate to. Got a licentiate degree in Orthoptics at Lisbon’s ESTeSL (Lisbon’s Health Technology College). By my 3rd year I had the chance to go to the US to finish it off, narrowed it to Florida, Michigan and Washington University in St. Louis after excluding UCLA, Iowa, Minnesotta and Wisconsin. Ended up ditching them all and going to Italy for the UCSC on ERASMUS. Lost a year because of that but it really was a killer time, changed my life forever. Problem is when the Bologna agreement kicked in I lost another year with the ECTS transfer. So in all I took 7 years to complete my degree, which when I look back now make me think how far ahead I could have been professionally had I gone to the US or simply stay put in Lisbon. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret it, being an ERASMUS student was the single most beautiful thing I’ve done in my life but still…

I’m now on a fellowship at the Medical School of the University of Coimbra. Great job, lousy pay.