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What college should I apply to? My choices are UC Santa Cruz and Devry.
If i go to santa cruz, I go with friends (splitting house and food fees 4 ways), but thats a lot of hard work, and a lot of money which I don't have, but I feel a lot more comfortable in any situation with a friend that I know, and 2 of my friends I've known since elementary school
If I go to Devry, I go alone. I have trouble making friends (first grade I had no friends, partly due to mass bullying by the 2nd grade). However, it is a lot more affordable and I am practically guaranteed a Job.
I've been looking forward to a career of Video games, and nothing will deterr me from that path, even If I go completley freelance. But I am having trouble deciding on what path will take me there...

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Neneko is Neneko because Neneko couldn't be Neneko if Neneko wasn't Neneko!
--as quoted from Neneko, Mahoraba {Heartful Days}

I can stab a man with a thick paperback book thru the ribcage.

Do the one that's less expensive and guarantees you (practically) a job. Seriously. You don't want to end up in a situation where you don't have enough money, and have to either screw over your friends or work really hard to find a solution.

You might be able to still make friends despite your school troubles. I was made fun of a lot during school, and I still managed to get a group of friends in University. It's a whole different world from grades 1-12.

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I had an old signature. Now I've changed it.

I'm with Elena. In college, there's a lot more people wil diverse thoughts, opinions and preferances. It was a lot easier for me to meet people that I got along with then than it was for me in Highschool. A lot of the "popularity" thing dies out with it too, so you're basically able to do what you want.

Having friends around is nice, for sure, but if this other place is affordable (which already is a great thing considering just how expensive college really is) AND it guarantees you a job? Friends are nice but this is your future. Friends can be there for you but they can't land you an education and a job.

I'd go for the second place.

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Okay, but there was a goat!

The most important thing at all times, NO MATTER WHAT, is your future. This goes for the carreer you pick (I'm stressing this point; just how much DO you know about the job you're picking, really?), the college you go to (even if you have to see friends less often and work harder for a short while), and the cereal you buy at the store (dude, they made cereal with graham crackers in them? I'm so buying that )

Sit down and think real hard about what you're doing, what you know about these things, and where they'll lead you. Making an uninformed decision is a very bad idea right now, because you're at a crossroad that could either lead you to a rich life with a job you love or easystreet for a few years, then a job that's nothing like what you expected it'd be like and a hard time finding employment. Don't be afraid of branching away from friends if your situation is better where you go, but don't let the hard work keep you away either.

Just think about where either college'll lead you in, say, 5 years and decide from there.

Edit: Besides, meeting new people in college is easy unless you're a completely introverted online geek who spends all day levelling his female wood elf in his parents' basement. Expect to get laid, drunk, laid while drunk, and to wake up regularly in unusual places. These are the golden years of your life: don't waste them. Just don't ignore your academic studies either.

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 23rd October 2005 17:29

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (Silverlance @ 23rd October 2005 13:27)

Edit: Besides, meeting new people in college is easy unless you're a completely introverted online geek who spends all day levelling his female wood elf in his parents' basement. Expect to get laid, drunk, laid while drunk, and to wake up regularly in unusual places. These are the golden years of your life: don't waste them. Just don't ignore your academic studies either.

I'd like to say *don't* expect that, and don't do it unless that's what you really are after. There are a lot of experiences to be had in a University environment that in no way require random sexual and alcohol encounters. I myself never touched alcohol until I was nearly a senior, and I still consider Uni to be the best four years of my life.

Beyond that, I would probably agree with Silverlance. You want to strongly consider what you're going to school to do, especially if you ware doing something very specialized like game development - where the skills you learn may not be immediately applicable to another field. Speaking from the only two people I know who have specifically gone for game development, there's a 0% success rate of getting into the industry just after graduation. One of the two finally just landed a job at some small gaming firm in Boston - that's after going without a job for nearly three years.

Figure out what you need to do to get in. Talk to everyone you can who might know. And if it sounds like something you're unprepared to do, don't do it. You can always make a change after graduation, but it's so much easier to do so before.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 23rd October 2005 13:56)

I'd like to say *don't* expect that, and don't do it unless that's what you really are after. There are a lot of experiences to be had in a University environment that in no way require random sexual and alcohol encounters. I myself never touched alcohol until I was nearly a senior, and I still consider Uni to be the best four years of my life.

I didn't mean that literally. I'm a very laid back and easy-going type of guy IRL, but the worse I've ever done was go to a party, get absolutely drunk while talking with a guy in my C course, and later woke on in the host (an old and great friend)'s couch with "I LOVE MEXICO" painted on one of my shoes in liquid paper.

That was wild, but a very isolated thing. College life is mainly interacting with people on a more mature level than high school, but not necessarily in mature situations. I usually just played Starcraft with the comp. sci. students in my courses in the computer lab and went with a few friends to the nearby snack bar for fries and hotdogs between classes. And that's pretty much what you should expect. Parties are usually a end-of-semester thing, not an every-weekend-omg-exam-monday-oh-well-too-bad thing like cartoons and movies make it out to be.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (Silverlance @ 23rd October 2005 12:27)

Edit: Besides, meeting new people in college is easy unless you're a completely introverted online geek who spends all day levelling his female wood elf in his parents' basement. Expect to get laid, drunk, laid while drunk, and to wake up regularly in unusual places. These are the golden years of your life: don't waste them. Just don't ignore your academic studies either.

Actually, it's still pretty easy. You just have to haul yourself up out of your parents' basement and down to the University Gaming Club. Incidentally, that's where I met my husband and every single one of my close friends.

And perpetuating the "getting trashed is inevitable" myth is just ridiculous. I've never been drunk. None of my friends drink substantially. We had plenty of fun hanging out together without alcohol ever entering into the festivities.

Likewise with irresponsible sex. Talking about these things like everyone does them when research shows that most people do not just makes people feel left out when they're really making smart choices.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Devry.

Making friends is easy at university. If you could get them in highschool, you can get them there. It may take a while if your situation is less than perfect, but there's no chance in hell you wind up getting isolated if you don't want to. I took a plunge like that myself, and it turned out to be the best decesion of my life.

I can't tell you anything about American universities, but I assume, like here, there are plenty of opportunities for alochol and sexings. My current relationship was the result of a one-night thing which in turn was the result of cheap red wine; you can take it too far, but in my eyes, it's worse to be too careful. Like SilverLance said, these ARE the golden years.

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The Collapse of Heaven and Earth

Go to Devry, you need to form a new 'life'. College is a whole different story from highschool and before! You'll meet a ton of open mind people, and fresh females, or male whatever you are or like!

It's tough at first, but you have to start from the bottom and make your way up. Make sure you don't fall into the addiction abyss, drugs and alcohol can ruin your college career and sent you back home to work on a taco bell, you don't want THAT!

Have fun nontheless, you're about to experience the second best time of your life, high school senior year been the best, at least to me it was!

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PS3 tag: TipoDLuffy

"...quite possibly the greatest game ever made"