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Comment by izaidi | Hacker News Reader

That's good to hear -- I ran a paper in college and it was an awesome experience. This is such a hugely transformational period in publishing that knowing the ins and outs of the business makes you aware of how many opportunities there are right now. My current startup is intended to help small magazines and campus publications establish an online presence and being able to draw on personal experience makes me way more confident in its ability to succeed.

But yeah, I was in a similar boat in terms of the ADHD and not fitting into the general party culture and everything kind of fell into place when I started focusing on doing stuff that was actually fun to do and not so much on stuff I assumed I was supposed to be doing (i.e., my homework).

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Interesting - it is definitely an awesome time to be in publishing. I redid (as all freshmen tend to do) the paper's website, which was a huge learning experience.

A lot of publications seem to have problems getting themselves online - collegepublisher is the witness. So you seem to be in a viable area.

Most of the misery was from schoolwork, which is improving slowly. The social side is at a standstill, because I really don't like beer. It's a catch-22 from where I stand. I think I've always just focused on what was fun/interesting and ignored much else, which you can't do in college, at least academically. I want the liberal arts anti-focus, but of course didn't realize it would be this hard.

Drinking <> Socializing

If you learn nothing else, learn that.

It is perfectly possible to go to a kegger and drink water all night and still have a good time meeting interesting people and talking to them about interesting things.

Find those interesting people. Keep looking at different parties until you do.

I still keep in close contact with friends I met at University, and would not trade that experience for the world.

Exactly.

Do whatever you want, and don't let others stop you. If you enjoy going to parties - go. Someone deciding to get out of control and funnel a pitcher of beer doesn't mean you can't be standing 20 feet away having a great conversation with interesting people.

The same goes with joining a club of any sort. I mildly wish I joined the entrepreneurship club - but didn't since the majority of people there were all talk and no action.

That suggests another point - you will likely regret NOT doing things more than doing things. It is the time to experiment and potentially make some small mistakes.

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