My Biggest College Regrets: A Collaboration with Vanessa's Voice!

by - August 21, 2018



Hey everyone!

This week I have teamed up with fellow collegiate Vanessa, author behind blog "Vanessa's Voice" to bring you this piece on our biggest college regrets. I've briefly mentioned mine on here, but today we are going to share our three biggest regrets since starting college. I hope you enjoy!

  1. My first regret … My first regret is going into college thinking my experience would be like everyone elses. This sounds extremely vague, but let me explain. In the months leading up to college I spent countless hours planning out my entire freshmen experience and only had the “dorm room haul”, “move in day” and “college day-in-my-life” videos to go off of. When I got to school I tried very hard to have the perfect room, make the best friends, and overall just tried way too hard to achieve something that is supposed to happen naturally. My first regret is going into college with higher expectations that I now know could not be fulfilled. 
  2. My second regret…My second regret is not listening to my gut when it came to school. My first semester was incredible and I made tons of friends and captured equally as many pictures. However, come second semester I was miserable. I did not enjoy school as much and the rose colored glass I had once looked out of had quickly turned dull. I spent much of my time wondering if I should transfer schools. Honestly, I still think about transferring to this day, and now I’m a junior in college. I do believe I would be happier at a different school, but I also acknowledge that I would not have the same experiences if I left the University of Hawaii. If your gut is telling you that maybe you should be somewhere else, than I cannot stress enough how much you should listen to that feeling. 
  3.  My third regret…My third regret (that I’m working on correcting!) was not sticking up for myself and what I wanted in an education. My major was originally Chinese language and literature, and after my first year I knew that I wanted to try something else. Like many other kids, my parents were not very open to this idea and were frequently trying to convince me to either stay a language major or try out business classes. Knowing myself, I knew business was not something I would want and so I secretly began looking into different majors…second language studies, journalism, communications, and finally, political science. I compared all of the majors and, on the day of registration, told my parents I was going to change and become a polysci major. This sounds like a happy ending, but to this day I still get the occasional, “You should be a business major, “ or “You really should consider re-majoring in Chinese” conversations again. My regret is not having listened to myself and not being honest with myself from the get go. Don’t hide yourself from your family, this is your education and I believe that you have the right to academically express yourself however you feel best. 
And there you have it, my top 3 biggest regrets since starting this journey. Here is what Vanessa had to say:

Hi everyone! My name is Vanessa and I'm the author of the college and lifestyle, Boston-based blog, "Vanessa's Voice." I want to thank Aislinn for joining me on this post! I also really only have 3 main things that I regret so far during my college experience.

 Things I Regret Doing/Not Doing
  1. Isolating myself in my dorm room. Freshman year I was more social during the first month, but I struggled with mental health issues so because of that I isolated myself. I only went out to go to class, eat meals, and to therapy. However, once a week I went out to my club meeting or a campus event so I was a little sociable. But I didn't go out with my roommate and her friends or anywhere else. Or I went to places on campus alone (except dinner) because I wasn't "in the mood to be around anyone." Looking back, I really shut out everything and I regret it. I regret letting my mental health control my life and ruin some of my relationships and experiences. I should have gone out and done more to gain the college experience, but unfortunately I didn't.
  2. Not joining a club at UMass.  Since transferring to UMass Boston, I have yet to officially join a club. I know not everyone has to, but I did during my freshman year and I enjoyed it. Plus, I don't make friends easily so being in a club would help that. But I never did because I didn't want to go to the meetings. My school is known for being a commuter school, so even though most club meetings are right after the end of most classes, I never went because I was too tired and didn't want to be on campus anymore. But you get what you put into it. I don't know many people on campus because I haven't put in the effort to meet anyone, really. I don't feel like I'm involved on campus because I'm not. But I'm hoping to change that this year.
  3. Putting in more effort in my grades. When I was in school, I was an honor student. But since being in college, my grades have fluctuated. I was taking science classes during my first year and my grades were awful, even when I went to tutoring. Then once I got to to UMass, the grades I received depended on the class. If I liked the class and cared enough, then I would get a good final grade. But if I didn't care, then I would get an unsatisfactory grade. Just this past semester I actually failed a class completely and lost credit. I've never gotten on the Dean's List. I know grades don't define you, but I'm pretty disappointed in myself in how my grades have been. Just this summer I was aiming for a overall high A on my summer class, but due to my poor time management, I missed an assignment and lost credit, thus bringing my grade down. I would like to get passing grades, but I know I need to put in the work and effort. 
And that's about it! Aislinn and I have had different experiences, but we hope it can relate to some of you.

 How do you guys like this post? Did you take anything away from it, or feel inspired? I hope you can learn from us, two collegiates who have been-there and done-that. Please check out Vanessa's blog and show her lots of love and aloha. As always, leave me a comment below sharing what you've learned!
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