ANSWERS: 8
  • I would have said yes when Jennifer asked me if she could kiss me that magical night when we sat together on the statue in the quad, watching the moon and reading sonnets. Everything would have been different.
  • I would work more instead of coasting and having fun. I would spend less time in the library reading about philosophy, and magic, and poetry, and fine arts, and more on physiology and biochemistry (essential parts of my course which bored me). I would get drunk with low friends less frequently and I would certainly have given up smoking before I even went. I wouldn't spend every afternoon with friends punting upstream to the Rose Tree Inn in Shincliffe, drinking pints of beer and then floating back downstream tipsy. (Did the Sun shine continuously _every_ afternoon between 1963 and 1966?) I suppose I must have found time to play croquet. I wouldn't do as much of that as I did either. Instead of affecting a worldly cynicism about my degree studies I would be jolly keen, join the Biological Society, suck up to the dons. I would be so keen it would be a toss up to decide if I was keen or merely satirical. Keenness, or at least apparent keenness seems to be one of the features that academics value above intellect, keeness and hard work. So I would be keen and hardworking or at least give the impression of being. I would not make up unflattering nicknames for my teachers, and accidentally on purpose repeat them in their hearing. I would stay to the end of every practical class even if I had finished the work an hour before. I would hand in my completed assignments on time and in good order, and eschew incredible excuses like 'The dog ate my hard-drive.' I would not, sitting on the stairs, before my next tutorial, complete the essay to be discussed in the following five minutes. Having done all of these things, postgraduate work might not come to me with the shock it did last time round.
  • I wouldn't have let a broken heart take away so much of my first year. I got more into it after that, but I am disappointed that I lost so much time wallowing in that. I wish I had immersed myself in people and opportunities sooner and put the pain behind me. Live and learn I guess. I guess I needed some time to sort it out.
  • I would have told my family to 'stuff it' and gone to Tulane University instead of UCLA. I would have studied neuroscience instead of engineering. I would have noticed women more (I guess, despite my belief to the contrary, there were some that were interested in me). And I would have bought a pair of Strength Shoes, done the workout program, and DUNKED on a regulation basketball rim....:-D...
  • Realize that I did deserve to be there and not everybody around me had it all figured out;)
  • Studied towards a different major. Asked for more extra help from professors. Not take a full schedule of classes while I was working a 40+ hour week at night.
  • I think I'd go away to school if I had a do-over. I stayed in my hometown. Looking back, I think I should have moved away from family/friends/boyfriend and really tested myself in the world at an earlier age.
  • Not played WoW? On the other hand, I've met some of my best friends through it. Not gotten scared of my soc professor. I'd really like to go back and just say hey, Prof so-and-so's bark is worse than her bite, just do the paper and you're set, she doesn't grade as harshly as you're building her in your mind.

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