OC...The Academic Side

The Good Stuff:

1. STUDY ABROAD!! (for as long as you can afford it) There's nothing like taking classes for credit in a different country and taking field trips every other day.

2. Waking up at 11am everyday because your classes start at noon...which also enables you to go to sleep everyday at 4am.

3. Consequently, for the early birds, getting done with all classes before 11am and having the entiiiiiiire rest of the day for ANYTHING like a nap, or the beach (San Diego).

4. Taking random, interesting classes that won't make you fall asleep. Trust us, there are a ton! If you have the time, you can take any class in any department (depending on your college and the class'sy prerequisite requirements).

5. Attendance isn't mandatory (although this depends on the professor). I do recommend actually GOING to class; after all, you (or your parents) paid for it, right?

6. Showing up late to class does not result in a detention (yea, you're done with high school). Oh, but you do get the evil eye from classmates and the professor during the walk of shame.

7. Sometimes you only have classes on two days of the week!!...but you might work the other 5 days of the week.

8. If you're really really really smart, or know the curriculum SUPER well, you can theoretically only show up to class to take the exams (or you can fail out really fast).

The Bad Stuff:

1. You still have to pull all nighters to finish papers, projects, etc.

2. There's always a really annoying person sitting in the front row of class disrupting the professor's every word by asking a million questions. Even the professor doesn't like them.

3. Sometimes your classes will have as many as 300 people; although, this may be a good thing depending on your personality.

4. Waking up at 6 a.m. to enroll in the class you really want. We'll have to discuss the enrollment process sometime later...

5. You still have to take some classes that you could care less about...e.g., General Education requirements.

6. You are paying thousands of dollars for a piece of paper with black font and possibly a gold seal on it. (Mine is signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, hehehe.)

7. Depending on your major (*cough* architecture) you might be spending more time at school than you think.........(cue scary music)

So there you have it, some of the good and some of the bad. Regardless, remember that college is what you make of it. The list here is just an arbitrary collection of memories from a cohort of "recent" college graduates.

*Thanks to the other writers for their contributions to this post*