I would spend a lot more time deciding what classes to take, and take those I'd learn the most from. The experience of the preceding 14 or so years had made me passive, because (a) classes didn't vary much and (b) I had little choice about which to take. That changed completely in college but I didn't adapt quickly enough.

I used to pick classes based on nothing more than the descriptions in the course catalog. Which is crazy considering the extent to which the classes you take define your life for that whole semester. Only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the classes I took were worthwhile. I'm sure I could have picked better if I did some actual research about them.

I wouldn't have taken so many philosophy classes (http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html). What instead? More history. That's a good subject to learn from professors. More math. I would have learned Latin or Greek instead of Arabic.

I'm curious: why Latin or Greek instead of Arabic? Is it that you think they'd be more useful (for understanding etymology/reading original texts)? Is it something about how the languages function? Simple personal bias?

As a Latin major in college (one thing I would have changed), I think it's a far more useful skill than people let on. Latin in particular forces you to think about grammar in a more rigorous way than English does, and in doing so, it helps you ensure that you say exactly what you mean. Latin is a highly inflected language, meaning that individual words carry almost all of the grammatical information necessary to parse a sentence. Large classes of ambiguity that exist in English are simply impossible in Latin because of this. I've compared Latin to statically typed languages in the past, and I think it's an apt comparison.

You have to think through what you say before you begin, because otherwise it's nearly impossible to make a grammatically correct sentence if you need to switch your phrasing. This practice has the side benefit of making sure that what you're trying to say actually makes sense. Put another way, clarity of grammar leads to clarity of thought. Near fluency in Latin has changed the way I speak English for the better, primarily for this reason.

I do not know Arabic, but as I said, I think that knowing Latin has helped me tremendously even though I can no longer speak it or actively use it.

I studied Latin for 2 years in high school, and I found it tremendously helpful, not only in helping me do well on the verbal section of the SAT (760 to match my 760 math), but also when dissecting the meanings as an English major in college. Latin also came in handy when I learned Spanish (and later Italian and a little Catalan). I can see where PG is coming from, as I also studied Japanese, which has nothing in common with the other languages I've studied, and I'm convinced that it lives in a separate area of my brain.

This is a derail from my initial question, but I'm curious: would you say that studying Japanese, which is so different from the other things you know, has had an impact on how you think or how you look at the world? Or does it feel like learning Japanese was overall less useful than studying Latin?

If I had it to do over again, I would still have studied Japanese, because speaking a language is the only true way to connect with a country's culture. Having been to Japan twice and being able to speak the language gave me a perspective that the typical gaijin doesn't get. Even though studying Japanese didn't help me learn other languages in the same way Latin lead to Spanish and Italian, it helped me understand Japanese culture better.

Interesting. I know neither Latin nor Arabic – beyond high school Spanish I'm a one-language person. The way you describe Latin makes it sound like something I'd like to study.

If you're inclined to working with computers, I think you'd find it relatively easy. Latin is HIGHLY systematic.

Feel free to ping me on e-mail if you'd like to talk more. I wrote a rough draft of a textbook as a "thesis" and while I don't know where it currently lives, I'd be happy to help as Latin pedagogy was my original calling (before software).

Course selection is an asymmetric information problem. You're only interested in a course if you desire to learn more about the subject matter, but you need a certain amount subject matter knowledge in order to make an informed decision about which course to take.

It's actually quite a difficult problem and one of the many solvable problems that are undermining the education system.

I think a lot about disruptive innovations in education and the "course selection process" is an area ripe for change.

My top of head thoughts on this:

The groups and individuals who are most likely to influence this decision are 1) the student himself 2) his classmates, friends, peers, etc. who have already taken the course 3) the educational institution: i.e. professors, authors of course catalogs, career development offices, etc

These three groups should have less say in course selection for the following reasons: 1) because they don't know what they're doing 2) same as (1) and the ones who have taken the course may be irrationally biased one way or another 3) they have a vested interest in perpetuating the status quo

One group that is missing in course selection is relevant outsiders: e.g. 1) for purely academic class this includes communities of interest as embodied in academic associations, online fora, relevant periodicals, etc. 2) for practical classes this includes: employers, practitioners, professional associations, etc.

The lack of input from outsiders in the education process and its subprocesses like course selection is one reason so many students are poorly prepared for the real world.

Take minimum requirements for my major.

Take more interesting classes (Evil & Decadence in Literature), less classes that I thought would help my career (Management in Engineering).

Hang out with more people who are interesting. Spend less time with people who are just fun w/o much substance. Don't waste effort on being friends with assholes because they seem cool.

Don't fall behind coursework.

Waste less time with stuff I cannot really remember: watching sports, TV, lectures by professors who cannot teach, video games, ...

Take more road trips.

Talk to more girls.

Enjoy the experience with a good attitude.

Be more social. Meet more people. Join clubs. Go to some parties. Not study so much. Be less serious. Take more risks. Join some intramural activities.

Basically everything I didn't do during college that I probably should have.

Make more use of free equipment such as: making films with free film, computer animation, and editing equipment.

Have more sex with random strangers.

Drop acid.

I probably would not go to college again and would just study on my own or take shorter programs (ie. 2-year degree)

If I did go again, this is what I would change:

While in college, after the first year, I spent more of my time working on extracurricular activities than on classwork. The classwork was mostly boring and not very practical while I learned much more on the extracurricular stuff. I would still do that.

I did take some classes not related to Comp Sci and don't think they really helped and were just a waste of money.

I left college with $35k in student loan debt and would try to avoid debt or take on much less.

I would have gotten part-time/summer work related to programming instead of irrelevant part-time jobs.

I would have worked on being less shy earlier and cultivating more groups of more diverse friends.

I would have studied Computer Science instead of Physics & Philosophy, which I don't really apply to anything I'm doing today.

I would have taken more advantage of the resources available to students: art programs, recording studios, the school radio station.

I already took the bare minimum classes -- and I would again.

I turned down a spot at an Ivy league school to go to another top-25 ranked school because they offered a lot of scholarship money. I would not have done that.

I would not have majored in Latin, or at least I would have considered majoring in something else. I majored in Latin because it was an extremely short major because I had taken 4 college courses in high school. I figured that would leave me with plenty of time to find something else worth studying, but I hadn't made it to CS before graduation time came. That decision forced roughly 4 years of extra work to "catch up" to where I would have been had I majored in CS originally.

I spent far too much time and energy trying to answer ?'s of religion that ultimately didn't get me anywhere. I wasted time oscillating between atheism and various flavors of Christianity, and in doing so ate up a lot of energy that ultimately could have been used for more fruitful pursuits.

EDIT - I see people are listing things they would have done identically as well. I figured I'd add this.

Assuming I went to the same college, I would not have changed my circles of friends significantly. I was in a dry fraternity (Lambda Chi Alpha at Wake Forest if anyone cares to know), and we were the top academic fraternity by a long shot for my entire tenure there. The people I met there were, by and large, the most fascinating people I've ever met. From this group, I know a Marshall scholar, a professional rapper, three priests of wildly differing viewpoints, several doctors and a professional poker player who netted 6 figures a year for 3 years. They were all people who weren't interested in the typical fraternity scene and who were intensely interested in the world around them and trying to make the most out of it, whereas the typical fraternity student isn't looking beyond their next chance to get laid. They ALMOST make up for my poor choice to take a scholarship instead of going to a school someone might have heard of.

Do whatever it takes to get out sooner. Every year in school costs not just tuition, etc. but lost potential income.

Live on as little as possible and avoid student loans as much as possible. I avoided loans until I was married and in grad school, but then I started living like I was already working, rather than living like a starving student.

Travel more - I had a great nearly free outdoor recreation program and only went on one adventure trip.

Stay in touch with people after graduation. I've finally reconnected to a lot thanks to Facebook and LinkedIn but there were a lot of years where I lost track of a lot of people.

When I was in school, it wasn't too realistic to start a side business but today there's no reason a CS student couldn't build a web or mobile app or do affiliate blogging for cash.

major in math (vs. cs), take less classes (so i could work on my ideas), intern at start ups, study abroad (semester or 2) at a place I'd never even consider living in (because once you graduate, it probably ain't happening, for various reasons. In college, you still have a support system)

what i'd do the same: hang out almost exclusively with people outside my major. My college friends are writers, traders, architects, etc, and I've learned immensely from them during college, and afterwards.

As someone who considered that, I wonder what your reasoning is? Math not CS.

I would have double majored or at least minored in computer science to go along with my analytic philosophy degree

Drink more, code more, go to class less.

I would have lived in quiet hall, despite the supposed social hindrance or (for some people) stigma. I need peace and quiet to concentrate, at which point I'm MUCH more efficient. One can always walk to another venue, when one is in the mood for louder socialization or a party.

I would have paid zero attention to "expert" opinions about what one "should" do. 'We don't have a geology program; just take chemistry and go into geology in grad school.' [1]

Not nice people aren't nice. Trust your intuition.

Related to all this, something that came up last night: When something isn't working, walk away (as soon as you reasonably can). Don't continue to support it (e.g. that nasty person) by virtue of your continued efforts.

Some of this is pretty general. But if you aren't applying it by the time you're in college, it's high time to learn it (and make your college experience a lot better).

1. P.S. I have a friend who was/is one of the smartest people I know. Yet in college his grades were lackluster and he was always getting involved in crazy personal projects, some illegal (but basically non-harmful).

He now in an engineer at CERN. He was smart, and he followed his passions.

There is quite a bit I would love to change about college including:

Not attending right out of HS, and instead working at a customer-service intensive job to increase my social skills and learn the value of money. There are too many students living off of loans, and believing that college is a 4 year vacation.

Not wasting so much time in college. 4-5 years is a humungous time investment. Some places you can get a BA/MS in almost the same time.

I would have completed an AS in math or physics first, and then tried to get into berkley/caltech/ivy.

Spending too much time talking about politics/religion/philosophy with the liberal arts kids.

Majoring in molecular biology rather than math/physics & minor in molecular biology. I have learned programming on my own time.

Trying to do a start-up the summer before I started the hardest classes.

*Not joining a (relatively sane) fraternity.

Now I am attempting to go from Life Sciences -> mathematical biology vs physics/math -> mathematical biology.