We Talked to 10 Graduates About Their College Regrets

There were some pretty big holes in my mathematics major.”

When I was applying to college, there was a news article about the best colleges that were outside the Ivy League. Skidmore was one of the “new Ivies” in the article. I liked Skidmore when I visited. It seemed to be strong academically, and it was a small school, which I thought would be uniformly better than a large school.It wasn’t until I went to graduate school and worked at several universities that I realized Skidmore had left me severely underprepared. I still feel like I’m catching up. There were some pretty big holes in my mathematics major. People I know who studied math at other schools took twice as many courses as I took in mathematics, because I was filling my credits with liberal arts classes. When I was 17, I thought well-roundedness was really attainable only at a small liberal arts school. If I could go back in time, I would have gone to a medium or larger school and tried to make the well-rounded thing happen on my own.

People would say some really messed-up, racist things to me.”

I’m from Hawaii, and I wanted to get off the island so badly. Boulder was the farthest east I was willing to go, and I had family there. When I visited the campus, it felt like what a college campus should be.Being half Chinese and passing as white, I found Boulder a really weird experience. I would go to parties and be around a bunch of drunk white kids — not that there’s anything wrong with that — and people would say some really messed-up, racist things to me, thinking that I was one of them. I also went into my freshman year closeted, and I experienced lots of homophobia while I was trying to be straight.It wasn’t until I moved to San Francisco that I found my people — people who didn’t care what I majored in. And when I started bartending, I was making a lot more money than I would have with a bachelor’s degree in sociology.In spite of what everybody else is doing and what all the adults in your life tell you, college is not that important. It’s not essential in terms of learning who you are and accepting yourself.

There were nights when I was in tears.”

My dad was a welder, and my mom was an administrative clerk. I was a first-generation college student. I didn’t have a whole lot of guidance when it came to college, and my applications were mostly limited to schools in Ohio. Then I visited the guy who I was dating at the University of Chicago and fell in love with the school’s culture of celebrating nerds.I got a scholarship at the University of Chicago and still graduated with $80,000 in student loan debt. As a public school teacher, the pay starts pretty low. There were nights when I was in tears. I was on the phone with Citibank more than once asking what my options were. I turned down graduate school opportunities because I didn’t want to take on more debt.Don’t get caught up in thinking that only one place can offer what you’re looking for. You can get a great education at almost any school. If I had gone to Miami University or Kenyon College or Wright State, I could have had just as transformational of an experience and not have been paying off college loans into my 40s.

All my friends wanted to talk about was beer, Jesus, the military and football.”

When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to study computer science more than anything. Virginia Tech had the best computer science program in the state. My decision to go there came down to the school’s ranking and talking with family members who went there and said the engineering program was strong.I thought college would be a breeding ground of interesting political ideas and communities. But Virginia Tech was a politically dead school. All my friends wanted to talk about was beer, Jesus, the military and football. And I was a Buddhist.If I had been open to nonengineering schools, I might have gone to a different school and had a much better time. You don’t need to go to the best engineering school to have a career in engineering.

An academic scholarship carries you only so far.”

I was really eager to go to college, and I knew I wanted to leave Rhode Island. I had traditional ideas about what college is supposed to look like: brick buildings and a quad. That led me to look at small liberal arts colleges in New England.St. Michael’s in Vermont felt like the right financial decision. My scholarship covered three-quarters of tuition. But an academic scholarship carries you only so far. I had to pay for room and board and books and study abroad.I graduated with about $60,000 in student loan debt. I was a history major, and my first job after graduating was a volunteer job with a nonprofit. In order to pay my half of rent, I also worked in a bakery making $7 an hour.I still have student loans. They follow me. Sixty thousand dollars over four years sounded affordable. I wasn’t thinking about interest accruing because I couldn’t pay that debt off the day I graduated. I could have gone to a state university and graduated earlier and spent a loss less money. Don’t be drawn into a romantic vision of college.

I was feeling pretty unhappy, even though I had really good friends.”

The University of Chicago was my dream school. In high school I saw myself as quite nerdy, and I really enjoyed class. I wanted to go to a school that was extremely rigorous academically, and I cared a lot about prestige.I had some professors at the University of Chicago who were very well regarded in their field. But they didn’t value whether I was enjoying the class or learning anything. They were checking a box to get funding for research. Someone who is in the top 0.5 percent at something regurgitating their expertise to a bunch of 20-year-olds isn’t going to stick. It worked for some of my classmates who were very bright, but that wasn’t me. The University of Chicago glorifies being stressed and overworked. I bought into that. At the beginning of my second year I was feeling pretty unhappy, even though I had really good friends. I realized that I wanted to go to a smaller school where well-roundedness was valued, and I missed having access to nature. I transferred to Middlebury, and I left with a really solid education. I had some professors who got me very excited about what they did. I loved going to class and was still challenged. And I’m really grateful I got to be in Vermont for two and a half years.

I wish I had listened to the doubts that I had about the faith.”

I chose Brigham Young University because I was born and raised a Mormon. I was excited to be surrounded by 30,000 kids who had the same goals and moral and religious background as me. There was no need to explain who you were. During college, I started working at a ski resort and getting exposed to people outside the faith and people of color. My brother came out of the closet about two years after my senior year. When I was at Brigham Young, I was steeped in a culture where it was OK to call someone gay as an insult.If I could go back, I would gently tell myself what I know now about the church’s history of racism and its treatment of L.G.B.T.Q. people. I wish I had listened to the doubts that I had about the faith. It probably would have been OK to go to the University of Utah, where there was a bigger community of people from different backgrounds.

Passion doesn’t pay the bills.”

I went to college to be a psychologist. I thought I’d get a Ph.D. and easily make six figures. Nobody ever explained to me that clinical psychologists start off making about $60,000 a year.I graduated with more than $100,000 in student loan debt. I didn’t really think anything of it until I did the math after senior year and realized I’d be paying over $1,200 a month to even make the minimum payments. There was no chance I was going to graduate school. I lived with my parents and worked 80 to 90 hours a week trying to get my minimum payments down.I loved Providence College, but I ended up burning out of human services. I did a coding boot camp, and now I’m a web analyst. I was always passionate about psychology. But passion doesn’t pay the bills the way something like computer science does.

I went to the school my mom wanted me to go to.”

I went to an extremely rigorous high school and applied to 17 colleges. If you didn’t apply to that many schools, it was weird. My dream school was the University of Washington. I got in, and when I visited, I was hit with a feeling that I belonged there.When I told my mom that, she was really unhappy. She thought that a state school like the University of Washington, with larger class sizes, would not offer a good enough education. She put all of my belongings in trash bags and told me she wouldn’t help me pay for college unless I went to Seattle University, which was smaller.Ultimately, I went to the school my mom wanted me to go to, and I was really unhappy. I tried to make it work, but by the second year, I decided to transfer. To this day, I hear people reminisce about college, and I get so envious because I feel like that was taken from me. Don’t be intimidated or influenced by other people’s choices or opinions. Sure, 18-year-olds are naïve. But at the same time, you have to make your own mistakes.

If you don’t like your college, you’re never stuck.”

During my first year at the Air Force Academy, I wondered if I made the right decision. You see your friends in civilian institutions having fun, wearing normal clothes and going out on the weekend. At the academy, you don’t have any privileges your freshman year. It made me look inward and think about what I really wanted. I was inspired by one of my aunts, who is a nurse and has worked way past her retirement. She wants to give back to the country as much as possible. I attended the Air Force Academy because I knew I wanted to serve and make the world a better place in some capacity.As young people, we always want to change the world right away. I realized early on that I don’t have that realm of influence. At the Air Force, I focus on five people who are within my sphere of influence. If I can make their lives better, then I feel like I made the world a better place. I have three younger siblings who are about to go through the college selection process. We put a lot of pressure on people that their college decision will change their life. And it’s just not true. If you don’t like your college, you’re never stuck. You should have faith in your abilities. In retrospect, life appears very linear. But it’s never actually that way. We all try little things along the way. Some things stick, and some things don’t. Nobody really has it figured out. We all just pretend.