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You’re halfway through the most formative decade of your life. You don’t need all the answers, but you must keep asking questions. Start with this one: what’s something new that I can learn right now?
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/50_things
As you begin your college experience, and I prepare for my 10-year college reunion, I thought I’d leave you with the things that, in retrospect, I think are important as you navigate the next four years. I hope that some of them are helpful.
Here goes…
- Your friends will change a lot over the next four years. Let them.
- Call someone you love back home a few times a week, even if just for a few minutes.
- In college more than ever before, songs will attach themselves to memories. Every month or two, make a mix cd, mp3 folder, whatever - just make sure you keep copies of these songs. Ten years out, they’ll be as effective as a journal in taking you back to your favorite moments.
- Take naps in the middle of the afternoon with reckless abandon.
- Adjust your schedule around when you are most productive and creative. If you’re nocturnal and do your best work late at night, embrace that. It may be the only time in your life when you can.
- If you write your best papers the night before they are due, don’t let people tell you that you “should be more organized” or that you “should plan better.” Different things work for different people. Personally, I worked best under pressure - so I always procrastinated… and always kicked ass (which annoyed my friends to no end). ;-) Use the freedom that comes with not having grades first semester to experiment and see what works best for you.
- At least a few times in your college career, do something fun and irresponsible when you should be studying. The night before my freshman year psych final, my roommate somehow scored front row seats to the Indigo Girls at a venue 2 hours away. I didn’t do so well on the final, but I haven’t thought about psych since 1993. I’ve thought about the experience of going to that show (with the guy who is now my son’s godfather) at least once a month ever since.
- Become friends with your favorite professors. Recognize that they can learn from you too - in fact, that’s part of the reason they chose to be professors.
- Carve out an hour every single day to be alone. (Sleeping doesn’t count.)
- Go on dates. Don’t feel like every date has to turn into a relationship.
- Don’t date someone your roommate has been in a relationship with.
- When your friends’ parents visit, include them. You’ll get free food, etc., and you’ll help them to feel like they’re cool, hangin’ with the hip college kids.
- In the first month of college, send a hand-written letter to someone who made college possible for you and describe your adventures thus far. It will mean a lot to him/her now, and it will mean a lot to you in ten years when he/she shows it to you.
- Embrace the differences between you and your classmates. Always be asking yourself, “what can I learn from this person?” More of your education will come from this than from any classroom.
- All-nighters are entirely overrated.
- For those of you who have come to college in a long-distance relationship with someone from high school: despite what many will tell you, it can work. The key is to not let your relationship interfere with your college experience. If you don’t want to date anyone else, that’s totally fine! What’s not fine, however, is missing out on a lot of defining experiences because you’re on the phone with your boyfriend/girlfriend for three hours every day.
- Working things out between friends is best done in person, not over email. (IM does not count as “in person.”) Often someone’s facial expressions will tell you more than his/her words.
- Take risks.
- Don’t be afraid of (or excited by) the co-ed bathrooms. The thrill is over in about 2 seconds.
- Wednesday is the middle of the week; therefore on wednesday night the week is more than half over. You should celebrate accordingly. (It makes thursday and friday a lot more fun.)
- Welcome failure into your lives. It’s how we grow. What matters is not that you failed, but that you recovered.
- Take some classes that have nothing to do with your major(s), purely for the fun of it.
- It’s important to think about the future, but it’s more important to be present in the now. You won’t get the most out of college if you think of it as a stepping stone.
- When you’re living on a college campus with 400 things going on every second of every day, watching TV is pretty much a waste of your time and a waste of your parents’ money. If you’re going to watch, watch with friends so at least you can call it a “valuable social experience.”
- Don’t be afraid to fall in love. When it happens, don’t take it for granted. Celebrate it, but don’t let it define your college experience.
- Much of the time you once had for pleasure reading is going to disappear. Keep a list of the books you would have read had you had the time, so that you can start reading them when you graduate.
- Things that seem like the end of the world really do become funny with a little time and distance. Knowing this, forget the embarassment and skip to the good part.
- Every once in awhile, there will come an especially powerful moment when you can actually feel that an experience has changed who you are. Embrace these, even if they are painful.
- No matter what your political or religious beliefs, be open-minded. You’re going to be challenged over the next four years in ways you can’t imagine, across all fronts. You can’t learn if you’re closed off.
- If you need to get a job, find something that you actually enjoy. Just because it’s work doesn’t mean it has to suck.
- Don’t always lead. It’s good to follow sometimes.
- Take a lot of pictures. One of my major regrets in life is that I didn’t take more pictures in college. My excuse was the cost of film and processing. Digital cameras are cheap and you have plenty of hard drive space, so you have no excuse.
- Your health and safety are more important than anything.
- Ask for help. Often.
- Half of you will be in the bottom half of your class at any given moment. Way more than half of you will be in the bottom half of your class at some point in the next four years. Get used to it.
- In ten years very few of you will look as good as you do right now, so secretly revel in how hot you are before it’s too late.
- In the long run, where you go to college doesn’t matter as much as what you do with the opportunities you’re given there. The MIT name on your resume won’t mean much if that’s the only thing on your resume. As a student here, you will have access to a variety of unique opportunities that no one else will ever have - don’t waste them.
- On the flip side, don’t try to do everything. Balance = well-being.
- Make perspective a priority. If you’re too close to something to have good perspective, rely on your friends to help you.
- Eat badly sometimes. It’s the last time in your life when you can do this without feeling guilty about it.
- Make a complete ass of yourself at least once, preferably more. It builds character.
- Wash your sheets more than once a year. Trust me on this one.
- If you are in a relationship and none of your friends want to hang out with you and your significant other, pay attention. They usually know better than you do.
- Don’t be afraid of the weird pizza topping combinations that your new friend from across the country loves. Some of the truly awful ones actually taste pretty good. Expand your horizons.
- Explore the campus thoroughly. Don’t get caught.
- Life is too short to stick with a course of study that you’re no longer excited about. Switch, even if it complicates things.
- Tattoos are permanent. Be very certain.
- Don’t make fun of prefrosh. That was you like 2 hours ago.
- Enjoy every second of the next four years. It is impossible to describe how quickly they pass.
- This is the only time in your lives when your only real responsibility is to learn. Try to remember how lucky you are every day.
Be yourself. Create. Inspire, and be inspired. Grow. Laugh. Learn. Love.
Welcome to some of the best years of your lives.
-Ben Jones
Director of Communications - MIT Office of Admissions
Scorpio possesses intense emotional depth and is an expert at understanding feelings. Pisces is sentiment and sympathy. They make a beautiful team together.
Scorpio and Pisces have the ability to tune into each other’s thoughts and feelings. They make excellent mind-readers, sensitively and intuitively picking up on each others moods and thoughts. They both use feelings to detect matters. Pisces should never discount their first impressions, for they possess great accuracy. Once they sway the other direction, they will soon discover that their first gut instinct was best. Scorpio’s ability to calculate and size up a situation is usually right on target as well.
When in a friendship status, Scorpio has an ability to protect Pisces. Pisces is the more vulnerable of the two, and Scorpio is capable of lending a supportive hand. Scorpio’s supportive ways may run into a sort of control mode from time to time, yet Pisces may not detect Scorpio’s subtle ways during the early stages of their association.
Pisces will teach Scorpio how to become more trusting, releasing and relaxing Scorpio’s deep and passionate intensity. Trust is an important item on Scorpio’s list and Pisces will have to work on gaining Scorpio’s trust and approval. This may take some time, as Pisces may fall short on keeping promises. Pisces often promises more than they can deliver, however sincere they may have been. When the chips are down, it is difficult for Pisces to pull themselves backup again.
Pisces may choose to drift into any form of escapism when unable to maintain strength. Scorpio helps to offset this deficiency with firm resolve, never giving up. There exists a great degree of silent communication between Scorpio and Pisces.
Scorpio often over-reacts to issues with much intensity. In romantic unions, Pisces has the ability to apply calmness to gently assist any of Scorpio’s dilemmas. In return, Scorpio will protect Pisces delicate vulnerable nature from being taken advantage of in unfair circumstances. Just be certain not to play mind games with emotional issues with each other.
Scorpio is more of an independent soul, whereas Pisces has a tendency to want to lean on a partner. Pisces becomes easily discouraged, while Scorpio has a firm resolve. Pisces may hide feelings and Scorpio is secretive. They should strive to increase clear communications between them.
Enjoy spending quality time together doing the things you both love to do. Dancing, music, artistic pursuits, swimming, or fishing and boating are all activities that have common appeal to both of these very emotional water signs.
SCORPIO: Intense, Secretive, Deep Insight
PISCES: Imaginative, Psychic, Artistic, Sensitive
ROMANTIC ATTRACTION:
Scorpio: Pisces and Taurus
Pisces: Cancer and Virgo
