My advice is probably better suited for a liberal arts major (compared to a STEM major, say).
Learn more than you know now about the jobs that your field of study might support—especially salary and life style. This seems like a big blind spot to a lot of students.
Go to professors’ office hours. They are fascinating people and know way more than you do. (P.S. I’m not a professor.)
Audit classes that you wish you had time to take.
Actually do the homework before the class in which it is due. (This is less of a problem for STEM majors than in humanities and many liberal arts; in the latter, homework is often just reading.)
Do the optional reading, even if it really is optional.
Take extensive notes on the reading. In class, focus on listening. Good lecturers are synthesizing the facts you should already have consumed. Your notes from class should be much briefer. You should be able to study for tests strictly from your notes, without needing the book, except as an occasional reference.
Sit near the front of class.
If you have to choose between one semester of microeconomics and one semester of macroeconomics, take micro.
Take at least two statistics classes.
Leave your video games at your parents’ house.
Learn an exercise routine that you can stick to for the rest of your life.
Depends on the amount and specific interval of time investment. MMOs create demands like playing 3-4 hours every tuesday and thursday evening without fail for raids. This now requires a 6-8 hour time investment a week minimum with strong social pressures from online friends. That’s not going to be helpful if you have a test on wednesday or friday. If you had a normal RPG or other hobby you could pick it up and put it down without social pressures and regular time investments at intervals in the middle of the week.
Given that I know plenty of people who play MMOs and participate in raids while still managing to pursue their studies/work/parenting/etc. successfully, this description of the absoluteness of the MMO time demands seems a little overblown.
Granted, I don’t actually play them myself, but it seems hard to believe that you couldn’t have a good time playing an MMO while also finding an in-game social group that was reasonable about participation requirements.
From our different observations of anecdotal evidence on this and the other comment thread I think that the university environments and populations you and I were exposed to were very different from one another. My environment was not with exceedingly intelligent people (likely below LW average) and was at a decent but not great university. My observations were from when I was a Freshman in college and observing other people that age though.
I’ve seen and heard of people who were older (grad school or working) and had much better experiences managing their time. However, I also remember meeting plenty of people when I was in high school who were much older and seemed to be playing far too much. Statistics on the topic would likely be useful at this point and people who are better at managing their time and dealing with
At this point for giving advice to Freshman aged students, I’d rather put out a warning and see how they handle it than not say anything at all. If someone isn’t already adept at managing their time at that age then I honestly think that playing an MMO on a regular basis could be detrimental and far more addictive a hobby than they should be testing themselves with at such a crucial time in their life.
That’s reasonable. And admittedly, I’ve personally avoided MMOs precisely for the time management reasons, so one might say that my words were in conflict with my actual actions… but then I’ve also gotten the impression that other, less addiction-prone people than me have gotten a lot of genuinely valuable things (e.g. friendships, management and organization skills, etc.), so I’m inclined to object if people present what seems to be an unfairly negatively slanted view of the genre.
My advice is probably better suited for a liberal arts major (compared to a STEM major, say).
Learn more than you know now about the jobs that your field of study might support—especially salary and life style. This seems like a big blind spot to a lot of students.
Go to professors’ office hours. They are fascinating people and know way more than you do. (P.S. I’m not a professor.)
Audit classes that you wish you had time to take.
Actually do the homework before the class in which it is due. (This is less of a problem for STEM majors than in humanities and many liberal arts; in the latter, homework is often just reading.)
Do the optional reading, even if it really is optional.
Take extensive notes on the reading. In class, focus on listening. Good lecturers are synthesizing the facts you should already have consumed. Your notes from class should be much briefer. You should be able to study for tests strictly from your notes, without needing the book, except as an occasional reference.
Sit near the front of class.
If you have to choose between one semester of microeconomics and one semester of macroeconomics, take micro.
Take at least two statistics classes.
Leave your video games at your parents’ house.
Learn an exercise routine that you can stick to for the rest of your life.
This sounds weird. Obviously you don’t want to be constantly addicted to video games, but everyone needs to relax, too.
Let’s go with a minimum of:
Immediately delete or throw away all MMOs and games that require regular time investments
Stick to games that can be picked up or put down easily so that they don’t cause harm to your study schedule, sleep schedule, or social commitments
Would you also recommend giving up all other hobbies that required regular time investments?
Depends on the amount and specific interval of time investment. MMOs create demands like playing 3-4 hours every tuesday and thursday evening without fail for raids. This now requires a 6-8 hour time investment a week minimum with strong social pressures from online friends. That’s not going to be helpful if you have a test on wednesday or friday. If you had a normal RPG or other hobby you could pick it up and put it down without social pressures and regular time investments at intervals in the middle of the week.
Given that I know plenty of people who play MMOs and participate in raids while still managing to pursue their studies/work/parenting/etc. successfully, this description of the absoluteness of the MMO time demands seems a little overblown.
Granted, I don’t actually play them myself, but it seems hard to believe that you couldn’t have a good time playing an MMO while also finding an in-game social group that was reasonable about participation requirements.
From our different observations of anecdotal evidence on this and the other comment thread I think that the university environments and populations you and I were exposed to were very different from one another. My environment was not with exceedingly intelligent people (likely below LW average) and was at a decent but not great university. My observations were from when I was a Freshman in college and observing other people that age though.
I’ve seen and heard of people who were older (grad school or working) and had much better experiences managing their time. However, I also remember meeting plenty of people when I was in high school who were much older and seemed to be playing far too much. Statistics on the topic would likely be useful at this point and people who are better at managing their time and dealing with
At this point for giving advice to Freshman aged students, I’d rather put out a warning and see how they handle it than not say anything at all. If someone isn’t already adept at managing their time at that age then I honestly think that playing an MMO on a regular basis could be detrimental and far more addictive a hobby than they should be testing themselves with at such a crucial time in their life.
That’s reasonable. And admittedly, I’ve personally avoided MMOs precisely for the time management reasons, so one might say that my words were in conflict with my actual actions… but then I’ve also gotten the impression that other, less addiction-prone people than me have gotten a lot of genuinely valuable things (e.g. friendships, management and organization skills, etc.), so I’m inclined to object if people present what seems to be an unfairly negatively slanted view of the genre.
MMOs are optimized to be superstimuli in ways most hobbies aren’t.