College -- well I suppose it's technically a University, a college being one of several in a university -- is a great experience and something I recommend that everybody do. I guess I'll explain why I feel this way in this entry.

Some background: I attended and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley from 1989 to 1993. UC Berkeley, or as it is commonly called, Cal (something I didn't realize until I got to Berkeley) is one of nine universities in the California UC system. I received a bachelor's degree in Electrical Enginnering and Computer Science, really just Computer Science as I only had to take a couple of EE classes.

Computer Science is a relatively new field of study in many schools. In Berkeley it was developed as a curricula by the Electrical Enginnering department, but there's also a Computer Science degree you can get from the College of Letters and Science. Strangely enough though, the L&S degree requires you to take the same classes (although not as many) as the EECS classes, and the professors are EECS professors.

Assuming you actually go away to college, the first you'll learn is how to live on your own. Now, college life is nowhere near like what real life is, but it's a start. For many, it's the first time away from home. Some go wild and burn out, but most competently deal with young adulthood.

In my freshman year, I live in a dormitory. Co-ed, which is wonderful. Shared a room with two other freshmen. Cafeteria for your meals. Laundry, bathroom and showers on the same floor. Group activities to give people a chance to get to know each other.

Now comes to the next part of what you learn, responsibility and discipline. Nobody makes you go to classes, study on your own, do the course work. It's up to each student to take responsibility for their education. Again, many fail and have to drop out. But, again, most will do just fine and go on to graduate.

And I think that those two are the most important things you learn by going to college. Independence. Adulthood. College is a great, relatively controlled, environment to do your final growing up and join the rest of the human race. I learned a lot about life in college. Not quite enough, as I'm still learning even now. But it was a great experience.

Let me write a few words about getting an Engineering degree. Engineering is tough, although there are other tough majors like Chemistry and Physics. There's a lot of math, science, and a lot of memorization and problem solving.

But it's also easy in one respect (at least for EECS): it's all laid out for you. The requirements are such that you can pretty much know what you need to take throughout your four years if you want to get the credits to graduate. There are not a lot of extra units to use on taking any class you fancy.

There is some latitude. For my humanities requirement I took a class in Ancient Greek Athletics, and I took Beginning Astronomy for some other requirement. But for the most part it would have been all but impossible to minor in anything. Fortunately, I love computers so I took as many CS classes as I could, only missing two out of the 12-15 offered by the department.

So that's it for this journal entry. College is a place where teens are polished into adults. Doesn't matter what your major, graduating says something important. It says that you have what it takes to make it out in the real world.