{"id":722,"date":"2014-04-08T13:24:58","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T13:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/?p=722"},"modified":"2021-10-15T20:57:10","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T20:57:10","slug":"the-best-worse-decisions-i-made-in-college-and-the-lessons-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/blog\/the-best-worse-decisions-i-made-in-college-and-the-lessons-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best & Worst Decisions I Made in College–and the Lessons Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"good<\/a>As I count down the weekends I have left in college, I can\u2019t help but reflect on the past four crazy years. I am very happy with and proud of many decisions I\u2019ve made here at Winona State, but, of course, there are other choices that have not served me so well.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a firm believer that everyone has to make and learn from their own mistakes, but I hope someone out there can learn a little something from my journey. There are plenty of ups and down in your college years and I hope the good always out-weighs the not-so-good.<\/p>\n

The Good<\/h2>\n

Studying abroad
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

Without a doubt, this has been the best decision, possibly of my whole life. Am I being dramatic? Maybe, but probably not– the experience really was amazing.<\/p>\n

Studying in Granada, Spain for 5 months of my junior year changed how I look at the world and myself. It’s taught me more about the world, my own country and most importantly, myself.<\/p>\n

I have become a huge advocate of all students studying abroad<\/a> and can\u2019t imagine my life if I hadn\u2019t of taken the chance to do so. I only wish I had been able to spend a full year abroad.<\/p>\n

\"Plaza<\/a>

Plaza de Espa\u00f1a, Seville, Spain<\/p><\/div>\n

Working
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other best decision of my college career was getting a job that has given me meaningful experience and opened my eyes to future careers. I work in the Web Communications<\/a> office working on WSU’s website and social media and I absolutely love it.<\/p>\n

I’ve learned so much and now I am headed into the workforce with real-world experience and a sense of which field I would like to enter. Don’t get me wrong, academics are very important, but my job experience is just as valuable to me as my grades.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Bad<\/h2>\n

Coming to college with my high school best friend<\/strong><\/p>\n

That seems like a dream come true, right? Umm no.<\/p>\n

Story time: Now, we didn\u2019t choose Winona State because<\/i> the other did. We both independently made the decision to come here but things didn\u2019t unfold as ideally as I had hoped.<\/p>\n

Freshman year, we spent way too much time together and I didn\u2019t branch out as much as one should. I didn\u2019t make too many new, close friends and spent a lot of time with her friends.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to junior year and this friend and I had a big falling out (big as in 15 months later, I have yet to speak to her). I knew it was time to move on from this friendship but it also meant moving on from many of the other friends I had made and I was left feeling lonely and isolated.<\/p>\n

It took a lot of resolve to start over with a clean slate but I because I did, I met amazing friends who mean the world to me. If only I had done that my first year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lessons Learned<\/h2>\n

Branch out<\/b><\/p>\n

If you already know some people when you arrive on campus that first day, great! Stay in touch with them but don\u2019t<\/em> depend on them.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t stop reaching out to new people because you never know who could end up becoming an irreplaceable\u00a0 friend.<\/p>\n

Take risks<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I was terrified of studying abroad. I almost started crying in the airport because I wasn\u2019t sure I could do it. But I didn\u2019t let that stop me. I took a risk and it paid off big time.<\/p>\n

You can take risks everyday that can lead to amazing opportunities.<\/p>\n

Introduce yourself to that interesting person in your ENG 111 class. Go to a club meeting even though you don\u2019t know anyone. Apply for a big internship even though you might not get. Remember: \u201cYou miss 100% of the shots you don\u2019t take\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I count down the weekends I have left in college, I can\u2019t help but reflect on the past four crazy years. I am very happy with and proud of many decisions I\u2019ve made here at Winona State, but, of course, there are other choices that have not served me so well. I\u2019m a firm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":4565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,1841],"tags":[1814,1813],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-admissions-blog","category-campus-life","tag-commit-transition","tag-decide-enroll"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/04\/good-bad-lessons.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OGeT-bE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5277,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/5277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}