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Back to School: 2010


Rowen

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Oh, hey. This thread. Let's see, last semester was:

Quote:
CMPUT 654: Online Learning

CMPUT 657: Heuristic Search

THES 903: [Placeholder course to keep full-time status]

STRESS 101

PANIC 101

This semester is:

Quote:
THES 919 [Placeholder course to keep full-time status]

STRESS 201

PANIC 201

 

I'm also going to be a Teaching Assistant for CMPUT 114 - Introduction to Computing Science. The biggest responsibility is teaching the proper safety precautions.

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Senior year of high school, finally.

 

AP Physics C (double period (our three core sciences all have double period AP classes, and I've been in them all now (except for Physics B)))

AP English Language

AP French VI (no, we don't have 6 years of proficiency - the system is just dumbed down for 4 years)

AP Economics (Micro and Macro (but only one period for this))

Linear Algebra (online through Johns Hopkins' CTY program)

And of course, Gym, because I've been too busy with double period sciences and other stuff for three years.

 

Oh, and thanks to the "hurricane," I don't start school until tomorrow.

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This semester I have to teach mechanics again.

 

The physics subject, that is. I'm not training auto repairpersons. In fact I'm very fuzzy about how engines work. I'm trying to learn.

 

As part of that, I recently drove a motorcycle for the first time. It's a lot harder than it looks. I never got out of first gear, and although I stayed in chugging control for a couple hundred meters, on the way back I wiped out, at very low speed. My only injury was a bruise, but I managed to break the bike's clutch lever. Oops.

 

Now I'm both impressed and alarmed that people ride these things at high speed on highways.

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Well, we don't ride motorcycles because it is SAFE. I'm glad you're OK. Even low-speed spills can cause serious injury. If you want to learn about how engines work, though, you should get an old motorcycle and take the whoile thing apart and put it back together. You will learn a lot about internal combustion, gearing, clutches, and drive trains. You can also try the Visible Engine project from the Smithsonian. It is a plastic engine that you put together as a working model. (it turns by electricity - battery operated, not combustion, but all of the major working parts are there.)

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Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity
This semester I have to teach mechanics again.

The physics subject, that is. I'm not training auto repairpersons. In fact I'm very fuzzy about how engines work. I'm trying to learn.

As part of that, I recently drove a motorcycle for the first time. It's a lot harder than it looks. I never got out of first gear, and although I stayed in chugging control for a couple hundred meters, on the way back I wiped out, at very low speed. My only injury was a bruise, but I managed to break the bike's clutch lever. Oops.

Now I'm both impressed and alarmed that people ride these things at high speed on highways.


Protip: If someone ever asks you to fix your car for them, just pop the hood, look around inside, and then say it's a problem with the carburetor and they should see a mechanic about it. Gets them off your case every time.
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Originally Posted By: Skwish-E
Yeah, especially if it's fuel injected.

If it's fuel injected then tell them to replace the air filter. smile
Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity
Now I'm both impressed and alarmed that people ride these things (motorcycles) at high speed on highways.

You are just using two gyroscopes that want to conserve angular mometum. It's changing the direction that causes problems.
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I would have had more science classes in high school, but due it's small size, the school didn't offer a huge variety. Plus, it was sometimes difficult to fit it into your schedule. If you're going into a science field it never hurts to have a broad knowledge-base.

 

Also, what does PAD stand for?

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Originally Posted By: Excalibur
I would have had more science classes in high school, but due it's small size, the school didn't offer a huge variety. Plus, it was sometimes difficult to fit it into your schedule. If you're going into a science field it never hurts to have a broad knowledge-base.

Also, what does PAD stand for?

Yeah, same here. I've taken all they offer...

PAD == Problems of American Democracy, required for all seniors. It's really just a how-gov't-works class, I don't know why they call it that. Probably some government regulation or something tongue
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Originally Posted By: Sylae
Senior in HS. I'll have taken six credits of science classes by the time I graduate. I can't help but feel like that's a slight imbalance, especially when only two are required.

I ended up taking seven different history classes in high school, which should not have been possible, but I convinced the registrar to let me take two AP classes for one semester each, then make up the rest of the material on my own time. Of course, that just meant cramming. I think I took a total of 10 APs altogether, although I only ended up with college credit for one (Biology). Talk about a waste of time and money -- I understand that my high school renounced APs a few years ago, and I don't blame them.
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APs were pretty good for knocking out those general education classes in college, like Art appreciation and basic social studies, etc.

 

What pissed me off was that this still didn't leave me any room to take a course in Spanish. Is it odd that my high school was much more flexible than college?

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AP Microeconomics - turns into macroeconomics at semester

AP World History

AP Literature and Composition

AP US Government and Politics - turns into a comparative government course at semester

French 3

Debate 3

AP Statistics

 

I regret not having been able to fit AP human geography into my schedule - I'd have taken all of the social studies classes offered, in such a case.

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Originally Posted By: Skwish-E
Originally Posted By: Randomizer

You are just using two gyroscopes that want to conserve angular mometum. It's changing the direction that causes problems.


It is true that the faster you go, the harder it is to fall over.

and the harder it is to fall......the more it hurts when you do
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Originally Posted By: Sylae
Edit Reason: Also, to whoever had the four AP classes, slow the hell down, you're making me feel stupider smirk

hey, I'm still behind some of my friends. And our school pushes AP classes so much that is really repulses me. AP English and History classes have about twice the number of qualified students.

Originally Posted By: Excalibur
I would have had more science classes in high school, but due it's small size, the school didn't offer a huge variety.

This. Between graduation requirements, limited offerings, and unnecessary double period science courses, I wouldn't be able to take more advanced science courses if we had them. The only ones available worth mentioning are Human A&P, AP Enviro-Sci, Astronomy, and maybe a few other lame things. But nothing really goes above the middle school level of complexity other than the first two.
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Originally Posted By: Master1
hey, I'm still behind some of my friends. And our school pushes AP classes so much that is really repulses me. AP English and History classes have about twice the number of qualified students.


I'm right there with you. Fortunately, my more specialized classes have a far more workable number of students, but the required core classes on the AP level are filled with people who ought not be there; they only serve to bring down the average.
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AP credit arms races are stupid, especially when colleges don't accept more than two or three of them.

 

Of course, they only work because students keep buying into them, because they're told that they are needed to get into college. I've never seen the point in trying to teach college-lite concepts to highschoolers. The material either goes over their head and they're wasting their time and effort, or they master it and then reach college and find out that crucial concepts were not taught in the AP course that were in the Level I course and that they've preemptively hamstrung themselves trying to get it out of the way.

 

And don't get me started on how stupid gen ed requirements are in general. There is no reason that I should take on massive debt so that I can become a "well rounded" person, since apparently analysis of Shakespeare is required to become a chemical engineer now. I am giving you money so that you will give me a degree as quickly and as cheaply as possible, and I don't want to spend a third of my time in college wasting my money taking courses that I'll never use again when I could be taking more useful courses or picking up a double or even triple major for the same amount of time and money.

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Dantius's skewed views aside, I'll respond with what I can.

 

RE: AP Arms Race.

Yes, they do look good for college admissions, but only in a limited degree. I take AP courses to stay with my peer group (as much as possible, as more and more people are shoved into the classes), to challenge myself as much as possible, and to escape as much gen-ed as possible.

 

RE: Gen-ed and higher ed.

You should look into the European (or at least British) system of university. It's far more specific - you go to university with a field in mind, you get groomed for the field, and come out specifically for that field.

 

I remember a while back, though, this topic came up. It was mentioned that many people in America end up in careers unrelated to their college/university focus. Is there correlation between a liberal arts education and this phenomenon? Is there causation? And if there is, in what direction?

 

I will chip in my parents' two cents here. They've been working for small liberal arts colleges since they came out of grad school, and they'll live and die by the quality of education. My dad says that a liberal arts college teaches you how to think, and allows to to succeed in almost any field, whether or not you focused on that field in college.

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Originally Posted By: Sylae
Quote:
The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"


i guess "why do we want it to work" isn't a question worth asking
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Of course, they only work because students keep buying into them, because they're told that they are needed to get into college. I've never seen the point in trying to teach college-lite concepts to highschoolers. The material either goes over their head and they're wasting their time and effort, or they master it and then reach college and find out that crucial concepts were not taught in the AP course that were in the Level I course and that they've preemptively hamstrung themselves trying to get it out of the way.


The problem I'm seeing with your critique of "college-lite" critique is that it, essentially, can be applied to all of secondary school. The only difference between AP courses and the rest of high school in this respect, then, is that AP is theoretically not as light, and also can eliminate some college courses. As you state, many times AP courses cannot fulfill credits, so there is no harm done. In instances where one takes AP classes in a subject that one will later pursue further, such a person would likely take further courses and make up any gap anyway.

And they look good on college applications, as a demonstration of academic rigor.

Originally Posted By: Dantius
And don't get me started on how stupid gen ed requirements are in general. There is no reason that I should take on massive debt so that I can become a "well rounded" person, since apparently analysis of Shakespeare is required to become a chemical engineer now. I am giving you money so that you will give me a degree as quickly and as cheaply as possible, and I don't want to spend a third of my time in college wasting my money taking courses that I'll never use again when I could be taking more useful courses or picking up a double or even triple major for the same amount of time and money.


Personally, I am a believer in the liberal arts tradition; it gives a wider foundation for intelligence. Whereas being able to delve deep and focus on one subject is critical, other fields of knowledge should not be sacrificed, as they are highly related, as well as just generally useful. The fact is that our division of subjects is artificial, because all fields have substantial interaction with other fields. To take environmental engineering, for instance, this type of engineer cannot work in a vacuum. Environmental laws and regulation are subject to change, and green politics, like all other politics, are in a state of flux concerning support and influence; there are moral considerations to environmental engineering, questioning the very division of civilization of nature, and what that division should be; there is a rich history of environmental engineering from which we can learn valuable lessons; all of these show that a general understanding of all of knowledge is necessary, beyond just knowing how we can alter the environment.

Ideally, though, I would be a student all of my life.
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Originally Posted By: Goldenking
I am a believer in the liberal arts tradition...

That's the thing: I'm not a big fan of tradition. Like Dantius says, Shakespeare is irrelevant to chemical engineering (my major in fact). I need lots of math, physics, and of course chemistry (and maybe biology). I would agree that English should be required at the very least, as communications are vital, but we're required to take a class in Engineering Communications anyway. The semesters I've spent taking fine arts and humanities class could have been spent on something far more relevant like Statics.

Originally Posted By: Master1
My dad says that a liberal arts college teaches you how to think, and allows to to succeed in almost any field, whether or not you focused on that field in college.

I can't know how to think unless I take liberal arts courses?
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i would argue that if there's one class that could teach you how to think it's economics

 

i mean a lot of my liberal arts classes consisted of me discreetly applying economics

 

when i think about philosophy i ultimately end up thinking about economics

 

but even that's silly i think

 

everything is meaningless

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If you're paying $40K a year for college, I can understand wanting to get the pain over with as fast as possible. But in many places it's still possible to put yourself through college with earnings from your summer job. I'm pretty sure you can still do that in Canada, at least if you can get a decent summer job. I wonder whether there aren't American state universities where you can do that, if you're a state resident. I'm not sure what the situation is in the UK or Australia, but in Germany university is practically (or even completely) free. (Germany is serious about the 'knowledge economy' thing.)

 

In those circumstances, your main investment is simply a few more years of your life put into education, rather than starting immediately to try to make serious money. If you're doing that, it's very well worth the money to get a broader perspective, and learn some stuff you might otherwise never learn in your life.

 

The humanities are an especially good investment, from this point of view, precisely because you can always just do reading and writing by yourself in your spare time, at any later time. What that means is that even a little bit of expert coaching in college gives you an edge you can continue to hone indefinitely.

 

For instance, I had high school English teachers who were charismatic, but a little heavy handed. With them, everything was all profound and crucial and agonizing. If I had gone on with that attitude to literature, I think I'd have burned out and gone back to watching cartoons pretty quickly. But my first college lecturer was much more down-to-earth. He wasn't at all afraid to call famous passages weird or awkward or even plain bad. To him even famous writers weren't prophets, but working artists whose craftsmanship was always open to criticism. This was an eye-opener to me, and made literature a lot more accessible.

 

The other thing you can get from humanities courses is a lot of coaching in writing. This is extremely valuable in most lines of work, and almost anybody can benefit from it. The grad students and professors who critique your little papers are people who have been reading and writing full time for years on end. They know this trade better than most people you'll ever meet. And while whether a piece of writing is beautiful may be a highly subjective question, writing clearly is a perfectly objective skill, like swimming or riding a motorcycle. It can be learned, and the traditional humanities seminar is a great place to learn it.

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I'll respond to the article in more detail tomorrow (while I'm not an economist, I am a game theorist, and I admit that in small, well-defined games where I am given a utility function I act according to self-interest alone).

 

But I must know: how exactly is capitalism the highest form of altruism?

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Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity
If you're paying $40K a year for college, I can understand wanting to get the pain over with as fast as possible. But in many places it's still possible to put yourself through college with earnings from your summer job. I'm pretty sure you can still do that in Canada, at least if you can get a decent summer job. I wonder whether there aren't American state universities where you can do that, if you're a state resident. I'm not sure what the situation is in the UK or Australia, but in Germany university is practically (or even completely) free. (Germany is serious about the 'knowledge economy' thing.)
One of my sisters went to a private university in Canada. She paid less for that than my other sister paid for a state university here.
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Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity
I wonder whether there aren't American state universities where you can do that, if you're a state resident.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County is the nearest state school for me. It's pretty much your average state school. The instate tuition is a touch over $9000, and the room and board is roughly the same. If I were to live at home and cut my R&B costs down to practically nil, I'd still not make enough in a summer (working around 30 hours a week) to cover tuition. With a few years of working in high school, like I do now, I would be able to come out with very little debt, maybe none at all. But education is hardly free here.

At the other end of things, you have the Ivy League schools, that have promised full aid to families making below a certain amount, I think $60,000 annually. Programs like this help make quality education accessible to the lower class, and it's always been available to the upper class. The middle class is, as usual, getting squeezed out of top tier education.
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Originally Posted By: Excalibur
Originally Posted By: Goldenking
I am a believer in the liberal arts tradition...

That's the thing: I'm not a big fan of tradition. Like Dantius says, Shakespeare is irrelevant to chemical engineering (my major in fact). I need lots of math, physics, and of course chemistry (and maybe biology). I would agree that English should be required at the very least, as communications are vital, but we're required to take a class in Engineering Communications anyway. The semesters I've spent taking fine arts and humanities class could have been spent on something far more relevant like Statics.
Originally Posted By: Master1
My dad says that a liberal arts college teaches you how to think, and allows to to succeed in almost any field, whether or not you focused on that field in college.
I can't know how to think unless I take liberal arts courses?

When I was an undergrad, I felt very much as you do about the apparent waste of time liberal arts courses were. I was a chemistry major, physics minor plus military science (ROTC). The subjects and math excited me and I did well in them. Liberal arts bored me to ever-loving tears; I passed. The only liberal arts courses I enjoyed were about languages; English and Spanish. I had had two years of Latin in high school which I truly enjoyed, mainly because the teacher brought the language to life. The only purpose I had for liberal arts courses was to round out my schedule with a no-lab class. (I had four labs a week as it was, all in the afternoon.)

However, when I took my first job as combat engineer platoon leader, I found that being 'book smart' was of no use when relating with people who were not. Fortunately, some of that wasteful liberal arts stuff stuck with me. The literature painted pictures of people who were different than me. The political science helped out when the subject popped up, which it did frequently in the late '70s. These helped me to relate with my troops. When I started programming at a manufacturing facility, I had to take a crash course in accounting. But even more important to my job was communicating technical computer jargon to a production floor supervisor, in language he could understand.

Nowadays, I have taken up the crossword puzzle to relax with, and all that history and geography I slept through pops back to mind readily. I actually enjoy reading about history, etc... Don't worry about not appreciating the liberal arts now. But I can almost assure you that someday you will appreciate it.

BTW, learning how businesses run is a skill you will have to pick up sooner or later. It may as well be sooner. Besides, it's a no-lab class.
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Originally Posted By: Master1
At the other end of things, you have the Ivy League schools, that have promised full aid to families making below a certain amount, I think $60,000 annually. Programs like this help make quality education accessible to the lower class, and it's always been available to the upper class. The middle class is, as usual, getting squeezed out of top tier education.

Last time I checked, not even all the Ivies had made that promise. At any rate, that is a tiny fraction of U.S. colleges, and despite what many people will assert, the education isn't actually better there, at the undergraduate level. (It's true that Harvard graduates have far more successful careers than the average college grad; however, if you compare Harvard graduates to students who were accepted by Harvard but chose not to attend, the difference disappears entirely.)

Point being, the middle class isn't being squeezed out of anything. Since middle class kids are more likely to get a good education as children, and have access to the sorts of opportunities that make a college application attractive, those full ride offers aren't going to end up applying to a very large portion of accepted students, anyway.
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
Originally Posted By: Sylae
Quote:
The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"


i guess "why do we want it to work" isn't a question worth asking

It takes "life experience" to be the one to ask, "Does it, in fact, work?" (But the engineer will build one to see for himself and the scientist will test a dozen to give confidence intervals on it working.)

The AP arms race is a shame from the other side as well: pushing for students into APs means that sometimes APs are no longer advanced classes. It's worthwhile to give the students who are most interested and most capable the chance to explore something in greater breadth and depth than the students just filling requirements. Make APs practically required and you lose that.

Finally, I'd argue that for a number of fields your undergrad education is not highly relevant. If you're going into medicine, science, law, some fields of engineering, almost all parts of academia, or other fields that require further schooling after college, you'll learn what you need there. And for many other fields, you can't learn what you need except on the job. The point of undergrad is to give you flexible thinking and a broad knowledge base, and you never know what will come in handy.

Some tips, though: as SoT says, you will need writing (and speaking!) skills in nearly every career path. Foreign languages come in handy more often than you might guess. Basic knowledge of science and economics can help you avoid some very stupid mistakes and misinformation. And those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

—Alorael, who read a study in China that showed that liberal arts studies actually produced better long-term employment outcomes than technical/vocational education. For about five years post-grad the highly specific education was better, but the liberal arts students caught up and tended to be more flexible in keeping abreast of changes in the state of the art. And now he can't find the study, so he can't cite his sources.
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Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S
Last time I checked, not even all the Ivies had made that promise. ... the education isn't actually better there, at the undergraduate level.

Point being, the middle class isn't being squeezed out of anything.

I'm pretty sure most are. Looking at the Ivy League's page on financial aid, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, UPenn, and Yale all offer 100% demonstrated need commitment.
I know that their education isn't really better at the undergrad level, I was merely using them as an example of institutions offering exceptional financial aid to those who qualify.
And the middle class is being squeezed out of Ivy undergrad, although that's not worth too much. The bigger problem is the decrease in top tier schools offering merit aid.

Originally Posted By: Alorael, Lilith, Randomizer
—Alorael, who read a study in China ...

Really? When were you in China?
The article doesn't actually surprise me. If you find it, I'll give it to my dad as more ammunition in his "Liberal Arts are Awesome" spiel.
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Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity
If you're paying $40K a year for college, I can understand wanting to get the pain over with as fast as possible. But in many places it's still possible to put yourself through college with earnings from your summer job. I'm pretty sure you can still do that in Canada, at least if you can get a decent summer job. I wonder whether there aren't American state universities where you can do that, if you're a state resident.

I put myself through UC Berkeley with minimal financial assistance from my parents after the first couple of years with a part-time/summer job, as a California resident. I was able to do a fifth year partly because I was able to pay for it entirely by myself. Of course, the fee hikes over the past three years since I graduated have probably made that harder/impossible to do the way that I did it.

May as well toss in my own classes:

Legislation and Regulation
Contracts
Torts
Civil Procedure

Should be fun. Starts tomorrow.
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Originally Posted By: Master1
And the middle class is being squeezed out of Ivy undergrad, although that's not worth too much. The bigger problem is the decrease in top tier schools offering merit aid.

How is the middle class being squeezed out? If admissions are need-blind and need is always paid for, it seems it would reduce the upper middle class's representation to a proportional amount -- although I still suspect, given the impact SES has on your attractiveness to an elite school, that it wouldn't reduce it by much at all. Given the price tag of a year at an Ivy, I can't imagine these policies would do anything but increase the presence of lower middle class students.
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The lower middle class does okay, I suppose, provided that their financial aid comes in grant form. The rest of the middle class has to take on significant loans that should, in theory, be possible to pay off over the course of a decade or more, provided that nothing goes wrong.

 

That is, there's a strange middle space occupied by people who have enough income not to qualify for grants but not enough cash on hand to pay outright. I think those people are the people we're talking about, the "giant loan" crowd. Many people are daunted by the size of the indebtedness and end up not being able to attend universities to which they were accepted. I know that happened to me when I applied.

 

Of course, if we're talking about universities that don't have massive endowments (i.e. the other 4000 or so, other than those maybe 10 or 20 that do), loans are a given no matter how poor your family is.

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I can relate to this problem, I got into several top 100 liberal art schools, and it came down to two schools. Both would cost about $50,000 without financial aid. However, one was out of state and offered a chance to go somewhere else, have fun, and experience new things. The other was in state; I would have had a good time, maybe missed out on some adventures I could have had at the other school, but I could have graduated with no debt. I chose the out of state school, and to this day I still wonder if it was the right decision.

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