Notes to my 17-year-old self:

This let­ter is not about me—although I am scin­til­lat­ingly won­der­ful, of course—and it is not about the future, despite the fact that there is so much I am bust­ing to tell. At least, it isn’t about these things in any direct sense.

You see: I know you. I know you do not want to know what you will be like at age 54. You most cer­tainly do not want to know what hap­pens to you in the future. Not now, espe­cially, when you have so many options (and when you dare not con­tem­plate them). I rec­og­nize that you have no con­cept of the future, who or what you might become, how you might think or act. In many respects, you do not care about it at all. It seems more than a lit­tle bor­ing. I under­stand. I will there­fore not dis­close any­thing about me, or the future. All I will say is that your life is bet­ter, more ful­fill­ing and more excit­ing than any­thing you could imagine.

To turn to what inter­ests you—the present and your place. I can help: 37 years of liv­ing with you has taught me a lot. Let me share some of my thoughts so far.

First, this mak­ing mis­takes busi­ness. Keep read­ing →

High school stu­dents take notice: Don’t expect Mom and Dad to leave imme­di­ately after they move you in to school.

On Mon­day, the New York Times ran an arti­cle high­light­ing the var­i­ous ways col­leges han­dle heli­copter par­ents who are help­ing their chil­dren move in to their new dorms. More specif­i­cally, col­lege deans and ori­en­ta­tion lead­ers are find­ing that they must be more explicit when telling par­ents that their pres­ence is not required for the remain­der of orientation.

This raises an inter­est­ing ques­tion: why might par­ents feel incen­tivized to stick around after schlep­ping and then arrang­ing all of their child’s gear from the likes of Ikea, Bed Bath and Beyond, et ceteta? A blog post that same day, from the New York Times Economix blog team pro­vided an intrigu­ing, yet plau­si­ble answer. Keep read­ing →

A while back I shared my own expe­ri­ence explor­ing reli­gion in col­lege. This arti­cle by the Huff­in­g­ton Post's reli­gion edi­tor pro­vides excel­lent insight into how and why col­lege can be such a breed­ing ground for reli­gious exploration.

With issues such as the pro­posed Islamic cen­ter near Ground Zero dom­i­nat­ing the news and national dia­logues these days, now is as good a time as any to dis­cuss reli­gion as it per­tains to today's col­lege stu­dents. So what do you think?What has been your expe­ri­ence with reli­gion in college–or lack thereof? What was the spir­i­tual and/or reli­gious cul­ture like on your cam­pus? Share your thoughts below!

Last week, Gawker ran an arti­cle cit­ing the top ten tra­di­tional uni­ver­si­ties that have the high­est stu­dent debt. The data was pulled by a recent study by the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, which actu­ally revealed that the top three insti­tu­tions with high­est stu­dent debt are actu­ally for-profit schools, which are often crit­i­cized for not lead­ing to lucrative-enough careers. Con­tro­ver­sial leg­is­la­tion has even been passed regard­ing this issue.

What's a for-profit col­lege? Think DeVry and Uni­ver­sity of Pheonix. These schools offer a range of degrees (think X-ray tech­ni­cian cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to master's degrees) and are run by pri­vate, profit-seeking com­pa­nies or groups, which makes them an easy tar­get for pub­lic criticism.

How­ever, this list focused on the tra­di­tional insti­tu­tions that rack up the most stu­dent debt, as a large part of the U.S.'s college-going cul­ture seeks admis­sion to these revered schools. It's impor­tant to note that these pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ties, also, do not leave stu­dents' wal­lets unscathed. Here's the list, via Gawker:

1) New York Uni­ver­sity: $659 mil­lion
2) Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia: $631 mil­lion
3) Penn State Uni­ver­sity: $590 mil­lion
4) Ohio State Uni­ver­sity: $560 mil­lion
5) Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota: $495 mil­lion
6) Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity: $479 mil­lion
7) Uni­ver­sity of Texas: $474 mil­lion
8) Michi­gan State Uni­ver­sity: $433 mil­lion
9) Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity– Pur­due Uni­ver­sity: $421 mil­lion
10) Rut­gers: $398 million

Keep read­ing →

No, uni­ver­si­ties aren't far­ing a sud­den out­burst of a neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders, but they're def­i­nitely on high alert. As these warm, musky days of August roll for­ward, col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties across the coun­try are whip­ping out the pop-up tents, set­ting up check-in booths and pass­ing out pre-stuffed fold­ers to fresh­men, new grad­u­ate stu­dents and other fresh faces on their respec­tive col­lege cam­pus. Phew, what a long sen­tence. In short, it's ori­en­ta­tion week at tons of schools. Bring on the orientating!

I have one more day of my jour­nal­ism grad­u­ate stu­dent ori­en­ta­tion at the Annen­berg School for Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Jour­nal­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and I'm wiped! In a good way. My 40-or-so other new stu­dent cohorts and I have been wowed with dozens of mul­ti­me­dia pre­sen­ta­tions, lec­tures and dis­cus­sions with fac­ulty, pro­gram direc­tors and cur­rent stu­dents. We're get­ting a full dose of the oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able to us through our aca­d­e­mic pro­gram, as well as an oppor­tu­nity to meet and greet each other. It's ori­en­ta­tion over­load, and we're being given a lot of undi­vided and sin­cere attention.

And we're not alone. Across the coun­try, scores of new col­lege stu­dents are going through the same expe­ri­ence. It's dorm move-in week for lots of fresh­men, many of whom are accom­pa­nied by box-toting par­ents who get to attend their own "So your kid's in col­lege" ses­sions put on by cam­pus res­i­den­tial staff. Freshly landed inter­na­tional stu­dents are get­ting a taste of Amer­i­can stu­dent life in the form of meet-and-greet social mix­ers. New Ph.D. can­di­dates are set­tling into their new homes for the next few years, and they're often wel­comed with spe­cial ori­en­ta­tions tai­lored specif­i­cally toward their research interests.

The mas­sive ori­en­ta­tion trend that sweeps col­lege cam­puses each fall speaks vol­umes to the over­whelm­ingly wel­com­ing cul­ture toward new stu­dents. Over­whelm­ingly wel­come, it is.

These ori­en­ta­tions take tons of plan­ning, lots of admin­is­tra­tive sup­port, and of course, moti­vated coor­di­na­tors. Did you know that there's actu­ally a national orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated entirely to edu­ca­tion ori­en­ta­tion pro­fes­sion­als? The National Ori­en­ta­tion Direc­tors Asso­ci­a­tion (NODA) gives out awards, schol­ar­ships and other recog­ni­tion to stand­out ori­en­ta­tion pro­grams at col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties across the coun­try. They pub­lish papers, hold con­fer­ences and net­work with Canada, even. A few years ago, I wrote about some NODA awards San Fran­cisco State Uni­ver­sity received for their ongo­ing sup­port of stu­dents long after ori­en­ta­tion fever winds down for the season.

The point is this. What goes on behind the scenes of ori­en­ta­tion pro­grams is of no use to those being ori­ented at the moment, but it's worth tak­ing a step back and not­ing their hard work. Being thrown head­first into an aca­d­e­mic pro­gram with no con­text or resources would be a shame. Stu­dents deserve to be pre­sented with a com­pre­hen­sive pack­age of what they've signed up for, as col­lege is such a large invest­ment of time, money and san­ity. Ori­en­ta­tions, while often manda­tory, are a school's way of respect­ing the com­mit­ment each stu­dent has made to the institution.

Here's to a Bet­ter­Grads tip of the hat to all the ori­en­ta­tion and stu­dent affairs pro­fes­sion­als out there who've put an incred­i­ble amount of time into plan­ning, prepar­ing and exe­cut­ing ori­en­ta­tion pro­grams on col­lege cam­puses this fall sea­son. Ori­ent on!

Or in the words of my new alma mater, Fight On.

Dear 17-year-old smart-ass,

I have been star­ing at this com­puter screen for days try­ing to fig­ure out why it is so dif­fi­cult to write to you, and I just real­ized some­thing. I know you. I know you, and I know what you’re think­ing right now, and you’re already rolling your eyes at this let­ter because you don’t need advice from any­one. So lis­ten, I am going to ask you to do some­thing for me. Trust me. I know it is com­pletely against your instincts right now to believe any­thing I have to say, but I promise you if you can just trust me with this, you’ll be hap­pier with your­self a lot sooner.

First of all, I have some bad news. Mom is right about every­thing. I am seri­ous, every­thing you are so absolutely sure she is wrong about, she isn’t. So do your­self a favor and stop try­ing to prove that you know more than her. You’ll end up being best friends with her, so why don’t you just expe­dite that process by shut­ting up and lis­ten­ing to her a lit­tle. She loves you and she is try­ing to keep you from mak­ing a lot of mis­takes in the future.

Oh yeah, you end up mak­ing those mis­takes any­ways. Don’t look at me; you’re the stub­born one that has to be right all the time. The good news is these mis­takes take you in a new direc­tion that you end up fit­ting into perfectly.

Keep read­ing →

Dear­est Seneca,

If you are not the most inde­ci­sive per­son in the world, I really don’t know who is. Or do I?

Mak­ing deci­sions is not exactly your forte, but the ones you have made have been, to put it plainly, quite rash. What looks good on paper is not always every­thing that it is cracked up to be. Think through things calmly, explore, and make deci­sions based on what is true to your core, and not to the fleet­ing desires and ideas of those you sur­round your­self with.

Get rid of all of those com­par­isons that you tend to make. Your name is Seneca, for cry­ing out loud, and, indeed, I have yet to meet some­one who can cap­ture in a word who you are. I sure hope that it remains that way. Never do a job that you do not like; money should not rule your life. But, keep in mind that one day, Dad will ask you to start help­ing to pay for insur­ance, so don’t be ridicu­lous. Do not fear the unknown or the fact that you do not always have a plan or a direc­tion. Life is much like a com­pass, and it will move when you move, so be proac­tive, but don’t feel so locked in for life to every­thing that you do.

Wel­come what comes your way, and grow and change because of it.

Keep read­ing →

Atten­tion past Jamie,

I know you’re wor­ried about going off to col­lege, but don’t be. The truth is, col­lege is a lot of work, but the work is not super dif­fi­cult. For the most part, it’s read­ing and writ­ing, just more than you’ve ever seen in one place at one time. You can han­dle it. Col­lege is a lot like dig­ging a hole: it’s not going to strain your brain, but you’re still going to need to bust your ass to get the job done. Don’t slack off, don’t get cocky, and if a pro­fes­sor wants you to learn some­thing that sounds ridicu­lous, just go with it. You don't need to take every­thing they teach you to heart, but argu­ing with the pro­fes­sor will get you nowhere; just do the work, get the A, and move on.

You are going to be attend­ing a com­mu­nity col­lege for two years, but don’t be embar­rassed. It was one of the best deci­sions I ever made. Those two years cost me less than one quar­ter at a four-year uni­ver­sity, and it was qual­ity edu­ca­tion that pre­pared me for what was to come. So make your jokes about how you attend the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Behind Costco, but you are going to save a huge pile of cash.

Keep read­ing →

Dear Ionut,

Wow, will you be in for some sur­prises!!! Now, you may think you know what you want to do in col­lege and later in life, but let me dis­abuse you of any notion that your plans are worth a dime! You will not only change your major two times over the first cou­ple of years in col­lege, but you will also find your career call­ing in an area that you may have always felt an attrac­tion for, but which you never really counted as a seri­ous option.

All of this is good news though! You will dis­cover new things that will greatly stim­u­late you intel­lec­tu­ally, you'll meet amaz­ing men­tors and friends and develop rela­tion­ships with them that will go on for the rest of your life. And that's just awesome!

Lastly, one piece of advice on your per­sonal life. Col­lege will be a place full of all sorts of peo­ple, from the really smart to the really, really stu­pid. So it's very impor­tant to make good deci­sions in choos­ing your friends. Also, for the first time you'll be on your own. There will be no one to take care of you and pro­tect you from mak­ing bad deci­sions that you will come to regret later on. So don't let all the silly talk about "exper­i­ment­ing" in col­lege lead you to do things you will be sorry you've done later on.

Good luck!

Name: Ionut Popescu
High Schools: Ine­chita Vacarescu, Roma­nia
Col­leges: Occi­den­tal Col­lege
Now: Grad­u­ate stu­dent, Duke University

This let­ter was writ­ten as part of the Bet­ter­Grads spe­cial series: "Write a Let­ter to Your High School Self." Con­trib­u­tors are asked to answer ques­tions or con­cerns they may have had in high school, such as "What's the pur­pose of col­lege?" and "Is it worth it?" If you'd like to sub­mit a let­ter for pub­li­ca­tion, please read our edi­to­r­ial guide­lines and let us know here.

Dear Jacob (the 17 year old version),

Your 23-year-old self thought your 17-year-old self should be aware of the following:

Please start ques­tion­ing your­self and take some time to reflect on the choices you make and how they define your char­ac­ter. End this robotic non-sense. There’s no instruc­tion guide this time around, but you can start by see­ing what mean­ing you can extract from Socrates’ quo­ta­tion, “The unex­am­ined life is not worth living.”

Stop think­ing that the uni­verse of col­leges exists only within the top 25 teams in the ESPN / USA Today col­lege foot­ball weekly poll. As much as you want be that “guy” on Sat­ur­day morn­ings and after­noons who paints his chest in his school’s col­ors and helps rally the stu­dent sec­tion in the large Divi­sion I behe­moth of a sta­dium, you’ll real­ize that such fan behav­ior extends to the smaller schools who play in D-III con­fer­ences and you should con­sider apply­ing to those schools too. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did. Keep read­ing →