What are some skills you guys wish you had taken the time to learn in college?

Going to Grad school and got some free college in my senior year of college. I'm bored a lot and figure it's a good time to learn useful skills. Any ideas?

 
Best Response

What's your major and what are you going to grad school for? That'll make a big difference. If you have truly open and free credits, I'd do something you haven't studied before and that you're not going to study in grad school. For example if you're a finance major, don't do more business classes, but I'd recommend taking either some interesting liberal arts courses or conversely some computer science/something that will give you a bit of programming knowledge. If you're an engineer, do a few liberal arts courses to round yourself out. Quant's good, but it's also good to be able to intelligently talk about something not related to engineering or finance. You're not going to learn everything about art by taking art history 101 or that much about literature by taking English lit 101 but it gives you a basic knowledge that you can build on throughout life. It's good to be able to shoot the shit at cocktail parties and dinners in the professional world and I've probably impressed, or at least surprised, more people with my knowledge of philosophy, history and literature than with my knowledge of finance. When you can impress a CEO's wife who's into art with your knowledge of art, it can go a long way. You can also impress everyone when current events come up and you're able to explain that some conflict in Transfuckistan has roots going back to the Mongol invasion of the country.

If you're a liberal arts major, take some business and computer courses. Add an extra math course in. Get some quant knowledge.

 
Dingdong08:
I'd recommend taking either some interesting liberal arts courses ... do a few liberal arts courses to round yourself out ... impress a CEO's wife who's into art with your knowledge of art ... some conflict in Transfuckistan

I'm heavily into liberal arts stuff, but I never got anywhere near it in my undergraduate or post-graduate coursework and my view is you can do this in your own time if you enjoy this sort of stuff. I really enjoy liberal arts stuff and would probably trace the Transfuckistan art work and conflicts back to the Seleucids and comment on parallels in Indo-European artwork between Iran and Ireland (the only two countries in the Indo-European language group that share the same linguistic "arya" ("noble") root that appears in Aryan, hmmm). I often cross the line from interesting to show-off.

If you don't enjoy this sort of stuff, then doing a course in it to round yourself out likely makes sense.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

I actually loaded up on a bunch of extra history classes because the material and more importantly professor who taught those classes was awesome. Second toughest professor I've ever had, I definitely learned a lot from seeing my research papers torn to shreds, but it taught me attention to detail, research and how to more effectively communicate my ideas.

Never take an art class, trust me. You would think it's a blow-off class that gives you a reason to mesh with art students and it might even be fun - it was a living hell.

 

There's online code tutorials at sites like Khan and Code Academy. I did both their intro to JavaScript chooses earlier this year. Was good stuff and easy to do in 2.5 weeks, would help you get more out of college courses on coding.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

why don't you want to just have more fun? I had a similar issue, I just spent more time at the beach, in the mountains, and at bars.

for classes, do you know a foreign language? if not, now would be a good time. plus, you can go abroad in the summer and try out your language. if you're already fluent, I agree with @"Dingdong08" take something to round yourself out, like psychology, philosophy, or even public speaking.

on the other side of that, what about practical stuff? do you know how to cook? how about building stuff? what about outdoorsy stuff? can you fish? start a fire? maybe try to learn to do something fun but useful. even if it has nothing to do with investment banking, it could still be beneficial to you as a person gasp.

you could also read, travel, exercise/sports, etc. not really skills but just stuff I do but if I had more time I'd do more of those things.

 

Key skill - rolling roll-you-own cigarettes.

This is one of those skills you can harvest well with friends and strangers, even if you don't smoke yourself.

Particularly useful if you're around pot smokers. You can extract the spliff rolling toke tithe.

In the land of the inept, the rollie-rolling man is king.

EDIT: Also learn how to loop cable/rope correctly and learn a few knots.

Demonstration of the above skills will make men want to be you and women want to be with you.

EDIT EDIT: Also learn a little origami. This one is for impressing the ladies. If you're ever short on things to say to a good looking lady in a bar or it's too loud, you can grab a menu or other paper and whip up something from nothing. It's also useful for impressing children.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 
SSits:

Key skill - rolling roll-you-own cigarettes.

This is one of those skills you can harvest well with friends and strangers, even if you don't smoke yourself.

Particularly useful if you're around pot smokers.

In the land of the inept, the rollie-rolling man is king.

If we're talking about real world practical skills, pulling a 6 foot bong without coughing will impress any stoner.

I smoked in college and thought that a good way to not smoke as much would be to roll my own because it would take time and effort. I just became really good and fast at rolling smokes.

 
Dingdong08:
SSits:

Key skill - rolling roll-you-own cigarettes.

This is one of those skills you can harvest well with friends and strangers, even if you don't smoke yourself.

Particularly useful if you're around pot smokers.

In the land of the inept, the rollie-rolling man is king.

If we're talking about real world practical skills, pulling a 6 foot bong without coughing will impress any stoner.

I smoked in college and thought that a good way to not smoke as much would be to roll my own because it would take time and effort. I just became really good and fast at rolling smokes.

I used to roll American Spirits and the $2 ZipZag roller whips one up in like 10 seconds. Rolls perfect Js too. Use the see through papers for added eroticism.

@"SSits" Do knots get you all the bitches?

heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 

programming and genetic manipulation, so I could change my DNA and make myself grow a second penis. One man DP.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

tennis. i still want to learn to play sometime.

this probably won't apply to you, but film-making. don't take me for the liberal arts major type, but i'd love to learn how to make videos well.

i'd also suggest learning to play poker if you can see yourself getting into that.. best decision i ever made.

 

1 semester of CS isn't going to do shit. neither will 1 semester of stats. these are really intensive subjects that take a long time to digest. In 1 class, you'll name the concepts but you'll have no idea how to implement them.

I wouldn't do something completely new but rather take something you're decent at and make it better. So i took an OK amount of physics in college, and so my senior year i finished my minor and it's much more impressive than intro CS or philosphy.

plus intro classes are the worst - they grade you on BS.

 

You don't want to be that guy that doesn't even know the difference between a flat head and phillips head screwdriver. There is a basic set of tools that every man should know how to use to complete basic tasks. Just a different perspective.

 

Take easy classes so you can get easy A's the actually enjoy senior year. The higher your GPA, the higher your chances are for getting into a top tier grad school. Always think the long game, not the short game.

I'm bi-winning. I win here, and I win there.
 
stillwinnning:

Take easy classes so you can get easy A's the actually enjoy senior year. The higher your GPA, the higher your chances are for getting into a top tier grad school. Always think the long game, not the short game.

I win at this. I'm taking 19 credits hours, have all As right now, and have had one exam all semester that I got a copy of beforehand.
heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 

Looking back on it, the best connections I have are the people I've had fun with, so party more (but not necessarily harder). That and take some random courses that you think might be interesting: just don't be the tool who talks about art history or whatever like a know it all, no one likes that guy, especially the ones who actually majored in art history (or whatever).

Travel more if you can. Day trips count.

Learn an instrument.

Volunteer to assist in research in something you know nothing about.

Join one of the gazillion random clubs that seem to only have a following in universities.

Start a study group or run a charity event.

Join a rec sports team. Join several. Then party with them.

......There is so much stuff to do on many colleges, I'm considering taking classes just to have access again.

Take a language class in something really off the wall, like Swahili.

Most universities have affiliate universities. Take a class there. Any class.

Do literally ANYTHING not related to work, you have the rest of your life for that AND it will make you more interesting.

Get busy living
 

History.

I could go on and on about the merits and how it repeats itself, and so on, but my key point is:

we live in a world where the main driving force behind events is human nature. human nature doesn't change, it only expresses itself through different means that are actually pretty similar, and so, events in history can all be traced to common elements and roots and drivers etc. there's a saying that i forget but basically says that a wise man learns from his mistakes. well a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others, and history is basically a collection of all the mistakes everyone ever made all over the world. chinese history specifically is very well documented and very long and diverse. i double majored in east asian studies along with economics and it was invaluable in understanding politics and strategy.

"... then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it."
 

I wish I started working out right away as I started recently and feel much better even though I am still skinny.

I also wish I learned how to be confident and comfortable with girls as a freshmen as I feel pretty damn pathetic being 21 and hardly ever kissed a girl

 

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