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Comment by chongli | Hacker News Reader

It is 4 years of living away from home experiencing whatever floats your boat ( frats, independence, parties, sports, friends, etc... )

I’m in university right now. I just finished a term of online classes. I’ve definitely witnessed those benefits being enjoyed by other students but I haven’t had the time to enjoy them myself; my program is simply too difficult for that. The most I’ve enjoyed is going out for drinks with friends once a week, and maybe the occasional meal out on another night.

The ones joining frats, partying constantly, playing sports and all that must have trivial classes. Either that or they’re already so rich and privileged that they can afford to fail courses and keep going.

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> The ones joining frats, partying constantly, playing sports and all that must have trivial classes. Either that or they’re already so rich and privileged that they can afford to fail courses and keep going.

You'd be surprised. Unless you're with someone 24/7 you actually don't know what else they are doing. I knew a girl in college who you might think partied all the time. I mean, she was always out and about, so makes sense. Except, the few people who knew her better got to see her literally study for 24 straight hours by sleeping 15-20 minutes here and there, slam a diet mountain dew on the way to class and ace the test. These were non-trivial classes, and she graduated with a 4.0 by the way.

Was this a healthy way to go through college? I don't think so. It certainly was not how I did it. But it did show me a level of effort around studying/working I didn't think was possible, and also that what people do in private will surprise you.

>The ones joining frats, partying constantly, playing sports and all that must have trivial classes. Either that or they’re already so rich and privileged that they can afford to fail courses and keep going.

I disagree completely. Some people are just inhumanly capable of balancing everything. One of the smartest people I met while in school was in a sorority and partied hard. She was also extremely successful academically and is currently attending medical school.

I also had my share of fun, but I would never have been able to keep up with her. Fortunately my academic ambitions don't go much farther than my BS in comp. sci.

Just because you can't manage the balancing act doesn't mean no one else can.

I disagree completely. Some people are just inhumanly capable of balancing everything. One of the smartest people I met while in school was in a sorority and partied hard. She was also extremely successful academically and is currently attending medical school.

She’s the exception that proves the rule. I met at least half a dozen people in first year who partied only moderately and have since flunked out of the school. They’ve moved to other schools with less demanding programs and tried to put their lives back together.

I also met someone who studied for an entire term to pass the MCAT and got into medical school. She seemed like the type of person who really knew how to balance her life though. Not a crazy partier but someone with close friendships.

I think both you and she are near opposite ends of a fairly normal distribution. Yes, she's an outlier (not as much as you seem to think though), but your description of your experience is as well.

Ya, that’s an outlier, over a quarter of people drop out of college because they can’t handle following directions.

> ...in a sorority

When I was in college from 2002 to 2006, the thing I heard about sororities was that joining one usually helped a GPAs, and they were really good about keeping an archive of old exams and notes.

Joining a frat hurt your GPA.

> The ones joining frats, partying constantly, playing sports and all that must have trivial classes.

Not true at all. Perhaps they may not end up with the best GPA but they'll do good enough to get a useful degree while having a strong network. It may not have been the healthiest lifestyle for the time being, but they made it out fine.

Source: A large part of my college social circle who ended up in fruitful STEM/consulting/medicine careers.

If someone didn’t have to commute or work a lot of hours in a part time job, they should have more than enough time to do those things while studying enough. Or maybe they prefer to hit the gym, there are lots of options.

You don't have to be in a frat to have the "college experience", but you should explore interests outside of your direct course of study and meet new people. I think you will regret it if you just keep your nose down the whole time, whether or not its right you are paying for much more than classes. Given a second chance I would follow this advice :)

I don't know why you're assuming this, but I'm a little insulted. I was an NCAA athlete and a common refrain I always heard was that the most valuable skill you get from it is incredible time management. I didn't kill time on sites like HN or reddit or facebook (the only social network at the time). We partied a decent amount too. About half of the particular people I played and partied with now have doctorates from world class institutions. Nearly all of us have STEM degrees.

this reminds me of the scene in the movie Booksmart where the nerdy girls who did nothing but study and work towards their academic dreams found out all the "dumb" party kids also got into top tier schools while also having fun.

It's staggering to me how much people will publicly support government subsidized partying and friend making. At least in the past it felt like people pretended it was about education.

Partying in college is totally a new phenomenon!

It's not new, but that was never really part of the sales pitch of why we should subsidize it.

I'm pretty sure I read in either Herodotus or Thucydides a paragraph documenting complaints that the students were drinking instead of training.

Sound familiar? (And that was several thousand years ago)

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