How many times have you heard that college is the best four years of your life? A lot, most likely. From grandparents to parents to peers, it seems like everybody had a blast except for you. No worries. You’re not alone.

Whether you have one or all three common college regrets, here are some future plans to help you move upward and onward from college.

Table of Contents

1. Academic Regrets

Perhaps you regret not studying harder. Maybe you regret not getting a good enough GPA to hit the cutoff point for recruitment or grad school. Maybe you regret not mastering and truly learning the material. Maybe you feel like your poor grades are a sign that you haven’t successfully conquered time management and you’re afraid that will bleed over into your professional career. Or maybe you did have good grades but you procrastinated through the Dark Playground to get them so they don’t feel like real successes. 

Does this sound like you? Here are some tips to help remedy the situation:

Future Mindset + Action

• Even premed students get poor grades but that hasn’t held them back from getting into med school. 
• Take post-bacc classes if you would like to boost your grade.
• Remove your GPA from your resume. Many companies don’t care about it – if they do, they’ll ask for it.
• Look for amazing, smaller companies that won’t have a GPA cutoff point (bigger companies are also starting to do away with the requirement).
• Look for volunteering opportunities – even unorthodox ones. Try offering companies your skills and services. It’ll give you brownie points if you can prove your initiative.
• Take a No Procrastination Challenge.
• Set up and start regularly using a schedule.
• Create a chain of how many days you turn in your work on time.
• Take a Massive Open Online Course for fun and really focus on learning the material for learning’s sake and not for your grades. Bonus point if you get a certification. Add it to your resume.
• Read a nonfiction book that you’ve been meaning to read.

2. Social Regret

Not everybody is a social butterfly in college. Certain circumstances can aggravate feelings of loneliness, like being a transfer or commuter. Whether you didn’t join any extracurricular clubs or just didn’t make any close friends, college isn’t the only place to make friends and be social.