Survey Reveals Most American Adults Wish They Were Bigger Nerds In College

Ferris12 years ago

Yesterday, Reuters announced that most American adults wished that they had studied more in college. To me, this is like being on your deathbed and saying you wish you spent more time at the office.

From Reuters:

Nearly half of the adults questioned in the survey said they wished had made more of an effort in college, while another 40 percent said they should have done more networking, which is more typically associated with the professional world.

You can technically network while partying, right? I’ve definitely held the beer bong for future CEOs and the future Senators who will one day be holding Senate hearings with those CEOs. Being social is important in business, and partying is the purest form of socializing. Sure, every now and then it’s a good idea to put on a suit and shake a few hands, but all the career fairs in the world won’t make a difference in your success if you don’t know how to carry on a social conversation with your peers.

But only four percent wished they had had more sex… according to the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll.

Why is this so low? College is the greatest excuse in the world for sexual promiscuity. Who looked back and said that they had enough? You can never have enough. Assuming in this hypothetical situation that all of my exploits are disease-free and I get to choose how much sex I can have, I’d make Wilt Chamberlain’s pull count look tame.

Also bothering me is this survey’s taste in movies:

When offered a choice of a college movie they wished their school years had resembled, one quarter of the people questioned chose the Matt Damon-Ben Affleck Oscar winning film “Good Will Hunting,” while “The Social Network” about Zuckerberg had 21 percent. Eleven percent chose the fraternity house comedy “Animal House” or the comedy “Legally Blonde.”

Really? Eleven percent split between “Animal House” and “Legally Blonde” is ridiculous. Who doesn’t wish their college experience included Belushi smashing a guitar into a wall or terrorizing a parade?

Forty-five percent said that, if their child was offered a dream job while in college their advice would be to stay in school, while 27 percent would withhold an opinion and 23 percent would tell them to take the job.

There’s one I can finally agree with the majority on. Leaving college earlier than you need to is just dumb. There’s a reason why so many people take a victory lap or two: college is fucking awesome. Yeah, the adult world has some cool shit to offer, but college is that brief period in our lives when we’re fully allowed, and expected, to fuck shit up. If you don’t get your kicks in college, where else can you get them?

[via Reuters]