Here are fifty things you can do in college, even if the school isn't a famous one.
- Eat late night pizza in the dorms.
- Take road trips.
- Play intramural basketball games. At midnight.
- Choose classes you want to take.
- See how many straight nights you can eat spaghetti.
- Be a resident advisor in the dorms.
- Do research in physics with a professor.
- Meet your future husband or wife.
- Meet the person who will one day be your maid of honor or best man.
- Paint your face in the school's colors for the big game.
- Have a professor who tells you that she sees great potential in your work.
- Enjoy late night conversations with your new friends in the dorm.
- Create memories with your friends that will make you smile when you're fifty.
- Write for the campus newspaper.
- Sit with a professor during her office hours and realize you're chatting with the person who wrote the textbook you're using in class.
- Play mud football games on Sundays.
- Study abroad in Italy. Or Greece. Or Australia.
- Pull an all nighter studying with your friends.
- Go to parties. Good ones.
- Participate in campus traditions.
- Sing (obscene) songs to your college's rival at the homecoming game.
- Work a part-time job at the campus coffee shop, or the library, or at the restaurant in town.
- Discover your academic passions.
- Play in the school's marching band.
- Participate in the engineering Olympics.
- Feel like you're getting a little smarter every day.
- Realize that you are actually excited to attend your classes.
- Leave everything you didn't like about high school behind.
- Go on a camping trip with your new friends.
- Find an internship in a career that looks interesting.
- Meet mentors who will help you reach your potential.
- Celebrate the end of finals week with your fellow students.
- Take a class that has absolutely nothing to do with your major just because it looks interesting.
- Go to the school's football games. Or the basketball games. Or the hockey games.
- Spend Thanksgiving with a friend's family because they live closer to campus.
- Camp out to get basketball tickets.
- Eat Top Ramen, or cereal, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.
- Write a senior thesis on a subject you get to pick.
- Spend your summer getting career experience in an area you find interesting.
- Study in the park. In between Frisbee tossing.
- Excel academically and enjoy what you're learning.
- Make the kind of friends you know will be in your life for a very long time.
- Do community service with your college friends.
- Find your natural talents and interests.
- Discover what you want to do with your life.
- Do things that, one day, your kids won't be able to imagine mom or dad doing.
- Join a fraternity or sorority.
- Participate in an outdoor education program.
- Graduate and marvel at how far you've come, how much you've grown, and how much you've learned over the last four years.
- See how proud your parents are at your graduation.
How many of those are actually factored into the US News College rankings?