Graduation Day Approaches: No Regrets

As a corollary to my post of regrets, I want to follow up with what I don’t regret. While there are many things I wish I could change, there are also many things I would do the same if I had a second chance.

I’m glad I took German that first year. Though I didn’t like it enough to continue study in the subject and I sometimes wish I had taken ASL instead, I always wanted to learn German and now at least I can say I learned a little. In a related note, I’m glad I took a class which exposed me to Welsh and Gaelic. I have a long list of languages I want to learn and the little lessons we had for just the ability to pronounce names within the literature took those two languages off the list.

I’m glad I switched into an English major. Though I’m faced with low pay and the idea that humanities majors are somehow not as smart as scientists, the switch made me much happier and I’m going to be working in a job I enjoy instead of being miserable in a job I don’t enjoy. Also, the switch helped me to realize that I am actually a very good writer.

I’m glad I went so far away for college. My choice of schools was a bit of a fluke in that it was my only school that admitted me outright and didn’t waitlist me. I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t like it here. The opposite is true. I love it here. I can’t imagine the last four years without the people I’ve met. Also, in coming out east, I have realized that I really like having all four seasons.

I’m glad I did actually go through the process of getting the help I needed. Now I know that if (God forbid) I’m ever in the same situation, I can let myself ask for help. And, while I wish I had gone to medication sooner, I am glad I went without it first.

Graduation Day Approaches: Regret

I have just finished my last class of my undergraduate career.  I’m done.

While I’d like to live my life without regret, I know that I already have quite a few and as graduate day approaches, I’m finding more and more regrets from my time spent in college.  There are alot of things I’m glad happened and I wouldn’t do any other way, but today is for everything I wish had happened.  The No Regrets post is for another day.

I wish I had taken more pictures.  Four years flies by so fast and now I have very few pictures to remember them by.  Now I need to rely on mooching pictures from what other people have.

I wish I hadn’t spent so much time in the wrong major.  I was a physics/astronomy major for a year and a half and it made me miserable.  I wish I had realized earlier and switched or even just started college as an English major.  If I had the time I would have double majored in English and ASL, but because I didn’t start the English major until halfway through college, I didn’t have time to do both.  On a related note, I wish I had started ASL sooner so I could make a proper major or minor out of it considering it has such alot to do with what I’m studying next.

I wish I had studied harder and made more effort to pass those important classes.  There are a few classes I just simply failed and it was a matter of getting to class and doing the homework that did me in.  If I had been a better student, I would have avoided the problem I’m in now, where my grade in one class decides whether I get to graduate or not.

I wish I had started the medication sooner.  While it helped alot when I was on it, it would have done wonders through my first two years of college.  There are so many maybes attached to “If I had been happier those first two years.”  Maybe I would have been a better student.  Maybe I would still be a science major.  Maybe I would have switched majors sooner.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

There are others (like I wish I had lived off campus and I wish I realized earlier how awesome the people around me are) but those are the big ones.  The ones I would change if I could go back and do it over.  When I was a senior in highschool, people told me that college was a learning experience.  I didn’t realize that regret was a part of learning.