r/collegeadvice

Every laptop bag thread is either tech bros recommending massive tactical backpacks or people linking stuff over $100 and like no

Something that fits a 13 inch laptop, doesn't look like a hiking expedition loadout, and costs less than a textbook is literally all that's needed

Bonus points if it doesn't give off IT department energy when walking into a humanities lecture

What is everyone using day to day cause the options are overwhelming and nothing feels right

Need some advice. Back when I lived with my parents, I had my own room and always preferred total quiet do my homework Honestly, I never even did my homework online chatting with friends, even though that was the trendy thing to do at my school. I’ve always done everything in complete silence to stay focused.

Now I’m living on campus with a roommate who is just so loud. He’ll randomly blast music, talk loudly on the phone with his parents, or just watch Netflix and laugh out loud. I don't want to blame him because that's just his personality, but I honestly cannot concentrate at all. What would you recommend doing? Should I talk to my roommate or just find another place to study? And if I do need to talk to him, what should I even say?

So for an Environmental Studies Seminar class for me underneath the course on Degreeworks it says that you can repeat up to three times.

I met with an advisor and she said that I have to take it three times to graduate over my tenure here.

So is that accurate?

I feel really lost right now and I’m graduating in 5 weeks, I still don’t know how to apply for any college, and I’m having a hard time picking the majors I like ( law and architecture).
Can someone give me some advice .

I’m an incoming freshman and listed my preferences for USC, but didn’t get any of the ones I wanted. I got a suite where it’d be a double, 8 people, and have 2 bathrooms. It’s part of the International Residential College (IRC).

I’m not an international student, and I’d have to share a bathroom with most likely 3 others, so I’m not exactly thrilled. Though the suite does have AC.

I’m not sure what I should do. Should I accept the offer, accept then request reassignment, or decline and live home (30-40 minutes driving)?

I honestly don’t know much about IRC either. If anyone has experience from this or knows anything about IRC please let me know! Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Edit: I forgot to mention that IRC tends to be more “isolated” compared to the other housing options on campus, so I’m a bit nervous if I’ll be able to make friends. I’m not extremely social but I’m not antisocial either.

im a rising senior, and im starting to think ab college applications and such. i feel like a lot of people say business management is too broad of a major, but idk if thats applicable to my specific situation. i eventually want to go into an organizational development sort of field, and to do that im thinking of majoring in business management and minoring in psychology. should i just minor in hr instead?? i just dont want to stay in hr for the long run, maybe entry level and a few years following but not as like a career. are there any better majors/minors for this??? i also do intend on getting an mba eventually but thats too far out for me to be seriously thinking about

Hello, undergrad here. Just finished my first half of the sophomore semester after taking a year and a half break. I walked into this one class thinking it was a good idea at first…and boy was I wrong. I decided not to listen to my intuition and stuck with the brutal work, and I was left scrambling at the very last second. I basically did 4x the work of a normal four-person group because I had issues working with my original group. The professors are extremely strict and judgmental, and barely gave me a passing grade by the end. I really want to retake the class because of health complications and computer issues. But I’m worried they’re going to target me and make me a workhorse again, or that I’ll end up having similar problems. (It’s a history class by the way, and I don’t need it for my major that I’m declaring. But if I retake the class, theoretically, my C will turn into an A.)

Hey guys. Im entering my freshman year and I am extremely conflicted on whether or not I should get a random roommate or select someone myself. I’m not a super outgoing person, I just want someone that’s clean and calm. But, when looking on Instagram for a roommate, the people on there seem so outgoing which makes me feel like there’s this underlying pressure to be best friends with a roommate when I’m not really looking for that. Im okay with being cordial and hanging out from time to time, but nothing too crazy. I’m also scared to randomly select because I do not, by any means want to end up with a slob. What do I choose

I just got home from my advising appointment, and it didn't go as planned. I wanted to attend my old community college to get a degree in accounting and then transfer. I had already graduated from there with an associates degree in psychology, and I went to university to continue it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish it out back then due to financial reasons. I don't really care for business related subjects, but I was willing to try out accounting because of the job stability that comes with it. I didn't realize that I wouldn't get financial aid if I decided to go back to my cc, so that caused me to change my mind on going there.

I spoke with the advisor and we got to talking about things. In the end, she basically told me that I should just go back to university and finish out what I started or switch to social work instead of doing accounting. I'm really interested in psychology, but the path to get to where I want is a long one, and it's competitive. If I wasn't stuck where I live then that wouldn't be such a problem. I know that I would need a masters to get anywhere with it. I have no problem with doing that. For right now though, I just wanted to get a better paying job and get out of retail and then work towards doing what I truly wanted. I was thinking about using my psych degree and go into marketing, but I was discouraged from doing that by some people here on reddit.

But yeah, what would y'all do? Should I stay as a psych major and try to get into marketing afterwards? Should I switch to social work even though I'm not interested in that? Should I do a complete 180 and do accounting even though I'm not interested in that either? I don't know what to do because I know I should be realistic, but I also don't want to do something I hate which is what I'm doing now by working in retail.

Websites like Sophia, Study, Straighterline allow you to pay a monthly fee and knock out as many general ed classes as possible. Are these transferable into most colleges? I know they transfer into legit ones like WGU and SNHU.

I am in Utah BTW.

hi I was just hoping someone could lend me some advice.

I got into Uc Santa Barbara and committed there full time. I rlly like the campus and environment. I’m an art major. However, I really have a passion for animation and ucsb has nothing to offer for me in regards to animation. I knew that when I committed, tried to make peace w it, but I know truly I’m
not ok w abandoning it. I finally found a place down in Santa Barbara and between that and my tuition I really will be living financially tight. I have a lot of physical disabilities so having no financial wiggle room is dangerous for me.

I’m considering attending Santa Barbara city college instead. Tuition will only cost me max 2k a yr and then I’ll be able to afford my living costs comfortably. On top of that, I can get my AA there in animation and experiment w it to see if I’m sure I wanna go into that field.

I feel like if I did that I’d be giving up on ucsb, and im ashamed bcz it’s genuinely such a good school and opportunity. I’m making the harsh assumption I won’t be able to go into animation w just the degree from ucsb.

Anyways, is it wrong to walk away from an opportunity like ucsb? I’m afraid if I go there and commit to four years away from animation I may never find my way back to it. I suppose if I do end up wanting to go there sbcc is a rly good filter school to ucsb. Idk, I just feel so bad 😭

Hi all, Im stuck with at least what i think is one of the hardest decisions in my life. I'm currently committed to UMich, but just got off appeal and accepted into USC (starting fall semester). For both schools, I got into their engineering schools (probably going to do computer engineering), and have plans to add their business majors as a double major. Overall, I know Umich is better academics wise for both majors, but USC, for me, is in a better location (LA!!), better weather, and would probably be more fun. I'd also be able to bring my car to USC and not umich so I feel like you cant really get bored when you have all of LA to explore... I feel like after 4 years of just ann arbor and no car I'd get bored eventually. I already have a roommate and housing done for Umich. Also, Price is not a factor. Here's a general pros and cons for both I made:

UMich Pros:

-Have roommate and housing done

-Better for engineering and business

-College Town

-School spirit

UMich Cons:

-very very cold and bad weather (Im from texas so would be a big change, i def prefer hot weather)

-competitive

-hard to add ross as a double major

-ross bellcurve (people praying on ur downfall?)

-no car

USC Pros:

-easier to add marshall than ross

-LA

-more clubs, bars, going out scene

-beach

-warm weather

-have car

-more collaborative than competitive

-strong tech connections

-social balance

-more lax academics

-silicon valley

Cons:

-worse for my majors

-ghetto surronding area

-snobby/spoiled children?

-have to find new roommate and do housing

Please help me choose, im so 50/50 right now and love both, idk what to pick.

Thanks!!

Should I bother defending myself against a cheating allegation?

First of all, since I have little incentive to lie as an anon poster———I didn’t cheat. But maybe I should’ve been more considerate about how I’m perceived when taking online exams, and in which case, I’ll know to slow down for the sake of my professors who probably struggle to catch cheating w the growth of AI usage.

I would like to add that I’d already tried to settle it with my professor via email which didn’t work out. The question is whether or not I should bother going above him and to my uni’s misconduct department. After defending myself, my professor didn’t entertain my email reply, and only told me that he’s been teaching the class for two decades, and since nobody’s done it before, the pace that I took the exam isn’t possible without AI.

Almost two months ago, I took an exam using Smarterproctoring. My test taking was recorded but no live proctor was used, so my professor went through it himself. In short, he suspected that I cheated and immediately voided my score without telling me. I had to find out through contacting him only after this spring semester was over, and my grade (B+) was already posted.

I know! It’s not that bad, which is why I considered letting it go. But had the exam score been counted, I would’ve gotten an A-. And I feel as though I deserve it, which is why I went through the trouble of typing out a whole essay back to him.

When I emailed him last week, it was because I noticed that this exam wasn’t graded so I simply assumed it was oversight and went to remind him. That was when he said for certain that I violated student conduct, and his reasoning was:

\- I had answered all 60 exam questions correctly in under 7 minutes.
\- Some required calculations which made it extra impossible.

That sounds absolutely straightforward, except this was when I tried to defend myself by saying that I actually DIDN’T take 7 minutes, I took 28 and that was easily verifiable. The 7 minutes was me going through the exam, getting down what I knew for certain first, but the footage should’ve shown me going BACK and taking more time to reread the questions.

Also, there were certain aspects about the exam that I feel makes it absolutely possible to do quickly. First, about 50 out of 60 questions were simple 1-2 line multiple choice, basically just asking for definitions of concepts (economics) rather than applying those concepts. The other 10 were more application based—THESE were what he emphasized because they needed calculations except… I remember that the process for a lot of them could be shortcutted. This was one argument I detailed to him:

“I found some history of my midterm work in the calculator I used at the time. If it helps my case any, there is no way for me to go back and see the answers or even the questions on the midterm since they are always immediately locked after submitting, yet the numbers I will be referencing from what is saved on my calculator (TI-84 Plus CE) should still match one of the specific questions.

I’ll start with this one example, and if this isn’t sufficient, please feel free to let me know. I don’t recall which specific question number to reference, but this should belong to the question about the calculation of industry HHI. I chose this question to detail first not only because it felt most familiar to me (I have some difficulty recalling since the midterm was in March), but also because it might help explain my quickness.

I know that ideally you are supposed to work on each firm’s market share using their individual sales for the exact calculation, and this may not be a method that would have worked if the given sales numbers had been different, but to shortcut to the answer, I used the biggest firm’s sales, which was $700 (I can’t remember the individual sales of the other firms, but from the work, I saw that they added up to $3100 ← the sales were clean numbers, so I was able to mentally do the simple addition). 700/3100 = the biggest firm’s market share is 22.58%. 22.58%\^2 = about 510.

While the firms were not equally sized, for the sake of a quick estimate, I treated it as such and so I had the remaining market share of 77.5% (to get this I just did 100%-22.5%) split between the rest of the 5 firms, for 15.5%. 5 \* (15.5\^2) = about 1201. 1201 + 510 = 1711

Afterwards, I knew that the final answer couldn’t have been precisely 1711 because of these loosened estimates, so considering that, I chose whichever answer was closest to 1711.”

After emailing him back with this argument and more, he didn’t address my points and doubled down about my using AI (because 28 minutes is still short to him, even if it wasn’t 7). He didn’t bother offering to have a meeting about more of the questions. Or the work on my calculator that I still SOMEHOW have despite the exam being in March (because I did the exam!!). And it seems he didn’t bother looking at the footage again, PAST the 7 minute mark. He’s so confident that I’m intimidated to escalate it any further, thinking even the dean would share the same mindset. He also didn’t seem to report me for some reason, even when he suspects me? Also, I ended with a B+ so maybe it’s not worth it.

It just sucks. I might as well have used my time studying for that exam doing something else. I’m thinking of just accepting it because escalating might mean I might earn myself an official misconduct note on my record if they find me guilty. Plus I already have summer classes to deal with,,

Would it be wise to escalate this, or do I not have much backing at all?

Currently I attend Penn State Lehigh Valley and just wrapped up my freshman year there. Recently I’ve been considering trasnferring to Northhampton Community college which is half an hour away from my home, because it would allow me to live on campus affordably.

Living on campus would allow me to get a reset on life and improve myself. However I know that Penn State would be better for applications as it has a bigger name.

Would it make sense to do just my second and third year at the community college then go back to Penn State for my final year?

Im a junior in high school right now starting to think about what major I should choose for college and MIS has recently started to catch my attention. I like the idea of being at the intersection of business and technology, and the idea of working with systems, data, technology, all that good stuff. I am a little skeptical though and I am unsure if I should actually major in MIS or switch to something else. Is the job market looking good right now, and where is it headed? I would also like to know what a realistic career path looks like, where people usually start at, and where they end up at. If I do end up majoring in this, what should I prioritize in college (things like internship opportunities, personal projects, etc.). I also have seen things where people have said you can either focus in on more the business part or the technical part, and if you focus more on the technical part you can generally get higher pay. I wanted thoughts on this to see if its true or bs, and also if it is true, how to actually focus in on the technical part during college to set myself up.

Would love to hear from anyone who has anything that they think could help me, but also specifically those who majored in or work in the field.

i 17f have always thought of myself going to major in something science related and becoming a doctor but now approaching college application season i don’t know if im doing it because i truly want to or just know it’ll be a stable outcome overall. if i truly chose something i loved it would be something related to screenwriting and film. i go to a prestigious high school and am known to be one of the smartest so saying i want to be a film major would sound just stupid and also disappoint my parents. i have literally been using sleep over this and i don’t know whether or not to major in something i truly love and will make me happy or major in something that will give me stability. does anyone know what i should do in these type of situations??

Advisor said it was a lot to do in one semester, I plan on taking WR121 + intro physics, digital photography and a algebra 1. I was going to do this in the fall as that’s when the best classes are, but my advisor said that was a lot to take on? I’m currently doing auto body and it’s a 12 credit course and I’ve had limited gen ed on top of that due to the physical work load it came with but I’m one term away from being done (this term) and am starting to set up my academic plan for the future. I feel like maybe WR121 might be the most in terms of how much homework there’d be but everything else is pretty manageable?

My school has a few bachelors programs. I’m specifically getting a business degree and I thought about transferring to a university, but I also cannot afford it and most don’t offer great flexibility with online classes like my CC does.

I’m also worried about getting a BS in a CC and it not getting me anywhere 🥲 I do want to get a masters in HR or business field eventually maybe so it is something to consider I guess.

Thoughts?

For the longest time I thought I was just lazy or not disciplined enough, but I’m starting to think my biggest issue with studying is the first 10 minutes.

Once I actually get into it, I can usually keep going for a while. The problem is everything before that.

Opening my laptop, finding the right lecture slides, checking the PDF, realizing my notes are half-finished, opening the syllabus, getting distracted by another tab, then suddenly I’ve spent 25 minutes preparing to study without actually studying.

It feels stupid because I know what I need to do, but starting feels weirdly heavy when everything is scattered.

A few things have helped me make the start less painful:

• Starting with the smallest possible task. This helped the most. Not “study chapter 6,” but “understand this one slide” or “answer one practice question.” Once I start, it usually feels less dramatic.
• Keeping my phone away from my desk. I used to think having it face down was enough, but it wasn’t. If it’s within reach, I’ll check it without even thinking.
• Having a default study spot. My room is where I relax, scroll, eat, and procrastinate, so studying there makes everything harder. Going to the library removes a lot of the negotiation with myself.
• Putting my material in one place before I start. I realized half my resistance came from having slides, PDFs, notes, and links all over the place. I’ve been using muneo ai for some classes to keep the material together, but honestly the bigger point is just reducing the number of decisions before starting.
• Testing myself earlier. I used to reread first because it felt easier, but now I try to answer something before looking at the notes. Even if I get it wrong, it wakes my brain up way faster.

I’m realizing that motivation is kind of unreliable. Some days it’s there, most days it isn’t. But if I make starting easier, I don’t need to wait until I magically feel ready.

Does anyone else feel like discipline gets easier when you lower the friction around starting?

I am 21 and became a junior this past spring semester on the path to getting my bachelor's. I transferred from community college, and this past school year was my first at a 4-year in-state college. My biggest issue I have run into is cost. I paid for the last couple of semesters at community college without help from my parents, working part-time at minimum wage, but now that I am at a much more expensive school, I cannot pay that much. My parents make too much money to get really any financial aid, but they have no intention of helping me pay for school, and do not want to cosign a loan either. I drained my savings to pay for the fall semester, but this semester I have an outstanding balance of a couple of thousand dollars. I am planning to work full-time over the summer to pay it off, but then the issue resets in the fall.

On top of that, because of the hold on my account, I cannot register for fall classes yet, and I checked, and most of the classes I need are full. So I was thinking, should I just stop school until I am 24 so I can get aid based on my income and save up until then? Because even if I try to go this fall, I will probably not even be full-time and can't get aid. I don't know if my pessimism is blinding me, but any input would be appreciated.