#collegeblogging

[dicaeopolis]

i got a college degree and the thing i'm most proud of producing in the process is a full academic presentation about what makes a himbo

[wistfulvulpine]

o fuck i graduated

[hazelnuisance-blog]

As broken up as I am about my science wife leaving the apartment, the new roommate brought back her entire orientation group without saying anything. It’s late and they’re playing drunk twister and making fun of my spotted dick can on the counter. And then they're making fun of some guy in their group who they think might be ~on the spectrum~ without understanding that that's just how it is here. I can't stand people who transfer and don't get that there's a lot of neurodivergence here. I was out for part of the day at the movies and then I was working on my teaching stuff quietly so maybe she didn’t know I was home but still. It’ll be good because I’m about to turn on the sewing machine and make a backpack and some hotpants. 

[pterosounds]

there are at least 4 separate and different stray cats on campus, three of which live around my dorm building, and let me tell you, all of them are my friends.

[dicaeopolis]

sorry if this intrusive or whatevs but 😭 i think im applying to wellesley tbh and i wanted to know what you thought of it + do you think you need to be a perfect student to get in ? THANKS SO MUCH <3 i love your blog too btw

ahah thanks 😂 I have good news for you which is that by the time you're 24 you're going to have forgotten almost everything about the college application process. i think i was mostly a solid A- student in high school?? definitely near-flunked AP calc, I think i scraped through with a D. but if I remember right colleges are looking more holistically at applications these days. shit like extracurriculars and volunteering and leadership and all that. interviewing can't hurt. it's probably a good idea to write an essay that isn't about winning a sports game.

as far as colleges go I adored W, I loved the campus and I loved Boston and I loved the people and I loved going to a historically women's school. it's unreal how much more confidently & frequently people speak in class when there aren't cis guys there, and you carry that skill everywhere afterwards. the college has a LOT of resources available, and ofc as a queer person there's nowhere better. biggest downside is there's a lot of white feminist aspiring girlboss types around. avoid anyone who shows up anywhere in pantsuits, and don't read more emails than you absolutely have to.

i will say there's a lot of academic pressure. I was pretty depressed coming out of high school and in retrospect i would've gotten more out of college if i'd waited a few years to sort my head out. I'm glad I have my degree, I still dearly love classics and I wouldn't have had another chance to study it for four years and I had a full ride so I don't have loan regrets, but my current career is quite unrelated. if you're struggling with mental health as a teenager it might be a good idea to apply, defer, and spend a year or two figuring your shit out first. or just go somewhere easier. who give a fuck in the end

[dicaeopolis]

How did u get ur degree I’m a freshman in College and I want death. Where did you find the strength

uuuuuuhhh I MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST PERSON TO ASK I had a fairly rough time in college and am currently wielding a chainsaw for a living. but here's some stuff that helped for me

don't worry as much about classes as you think you need to. this isn't a race towards graduation, it's four years of your life. keep yourself under control and all, but there should be times when you go to a party the night before you have a paper due, or skip three days of class for an impromptu roadtrip. school shouldn't be your entire life.

you don't have college apps to worry about anymore, so you only have to do extracurriculars if you actually want to. they're also a good place to get out of your room and meet friends even if you don't stick with the org

this is the last time you're ever gonna have all your closest friends within a 10-minute walk so spend a lot of time with them, even just studying together

personal preference but I didn't date for like the first year and a half, too much other shit going on

keep a planner with dates and stuff but for god's sake don't get hung up on that washi tape and colorful bujo shit unless you really want to. it just needs to be functional

keep a sleep schedule PLEASE it doesn't have to be a good one just make sure it's regular (2am-10am is FINE as long as it's always that)

go to class even if you didn't do the homework. attendance records and hearing the lecture are way more important than homework grades (if you even have those). it's scary the first few times bc high school teachers are HARDASSES about homework, but I can assure you the prof is used to it.

I had this thing that in my head I called "money in the bank" that BASICALLY boiled down to doing stuff ahead of time, but with the specific attitude that im better at doing tasks in big chunks than a little bit every day. prime example is getting the syllabi at the beginning of the semester and taking an afternoon to put it all into a planner/Google Drive/Calendar, downloading the PDFs of the readings, starting a google doc for each day - basically minimizing the amount you'll have to do on the actual day, bc that actual day might be a Bad Brain Day. it's your slush fund, rainy day cash, your past self setting up structure and help for your future self so Bad Days can't hit as hard.

anddddd this might not be what you want to hear but. you don't have to go to college. especially not straight out of high school. I wish I'd waited. I was lucky enough to get a full ride at a college I loved studying my favorite subject and I still wish I'd waited, I finished college morbidly depressed and so strung-out on anxiety I'm only now starting to recover. follow a passion or something, go to trade school/do an apprenticeship, move somewhere you've never been and work in the outdoors or on a ranch, hitchhike and dick around til you grow up and feel ready to settle down more, WHATEVER. either you realize in the process that you do want to get a degree and you go back, or you realize that you wanna make your own way without going into a boatload of debt. but if you genuinely don't want to be in college, it'll have a WAY worse effect on you to stay there than it will to try something else. I'd stick it out for at least a semester or two to see if it's just a bad adjustment period, but. you don't have to go to college. you don't have to go to college. you don't have to go to college.

[dicaeopolis]

I also go to wellesley and I think I literally heard tell of your himbo presentation like some kind of origin myth

good i want to be a fucking cryptid on that campus, i want to disappear entirely, leaving only the faint scent of a Pomeroy dhall mocha and a distinct but inexplicable sense of chaos in my wake

[dicaeopolis]

going 2 wellesley on thursday, friday, and saturday to stay on campus. considering asking around until i find someone who knows of the legend of the himbo presentation

most of the people at that party were seniors at the time but a few people weren’t (and a few underclassmen who weren’t there heard about it later). this is all the clues I will give you though, you have to walk the rest of that path on your own