What I Wish I Knew in College

Josh Felgoise (00:00.204)

Welcome to Guy's Set, a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I'm Josh, I'm 24 years old, and I'm here to find all the tips, advice, and recommendations for everything you're wondering about. Let's get into it.

Josh Felgoise (00:17.998)

Hi guys, welcome back to guys set a guy's guide to what should be talked about. After doing last week's episode, which was called dear freshmen, and it was my advice for anybody starting out college, anybody going into their freshman year of college. It's advice I wish I knew or I wish I heard going into that year. I did that episode, I put it out and I got some really good reception from it. So I wanted to do kind of like a series of college advice. As I said at the beginning,

of that episode last week if you didn't hear it maybe go back and listen if you don't want to you can just stay here and I'll talk about what I said there but what I said was I feel like I'm now far enough out from that experience of being in college it's like it's been over two years which is really crazy to think about but I feel like I'm far enough out from it that I can look back and reflect on the times that may have been negative or the times that were positive and learn from those experiences and give some of that advice to you and hopefully

impart some of the values or impart some of the wisdom that I gained or I learned throughout my time to you, dear listener, whoever you are right now listening to this. So here are five pieces of advice that I wish I heard in college or I wish I heard before college. And this week's episode is much more for everybody. It's not just for one group of people or one subset of first semester freshman year.

This is really advice that I think applies to all four years of college. Anybody who's a freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior, anybody in that right now, this is for you. And this episode is shockingly comparative to most of my episodes, much more dedicated to the educational side of the academic side of your college career and not as much social focused, which I usually spend a lot of time talking about, but don't worry, we'll come back to social life soon, maybe next week.

as the final part of this series as my advice for college people or anybody in college right now. And I say at beginning of this episode that it's a guy's guide to what should be talked about. really think this applies to anybody in college. So if you're a guy, if you're a girl, whoever you're listening to this, I think this advice applies to you. So here we go. The first piece of advice is about what you study. One of the best things I did in college was follow where my interests led.

Josh Felgoise (02:34.83)

I majored in psychology and minored in both marketing and entrepreneurship. The school I went to allowed you to minor in as many things as you want. I think it was up to three and combined a lot of different areas of study and areas of education. So you weren't really like siloed into one specific thing. And this combination of three things was not what I went into college thinking I was going to do. I went in thinking that I was going to study marketing. I really had an interest in marketing and always had.

And following obvious schools of thought, if you want to become a marketer or do marketing for your career, you should major in marketing. And that's probably the easiest way to get a job in marketing, marketing, meet marketing. But at the same time, I was also super interested in psychology and I wanted to take a class in that and just see what that was like. And I went in with this like tunnel vision of I'm going to do marketing, major in marketing, get a job in marketing. That was kind of it.

And I remember taking that first class in psychology and remembering it being pretty challenging. It's like a kind of like a weed out class. All those OO1 classes are kind of weed out classes in college. Weed out meaning like they try to figure out who's actually going to follow that pursuit or follow that class trajectory and who wasn't. But it also was like a required class for a lot of other things. I think it was a required class for like economics and business and other stuff like that. Other tracks like that.

But I developed a really exciting interest for it and that kind of sidetracked my tunnel vision idea of marketing and what I was gonna do for the rest of my time there. And then I also discovered entrepreneurship and I was always really interested in starting a business or starting some sort of company and how people do that and the thought process behind that. And when you think of all three of these things in combination, it actually does make sense. When you wanna make something, you wanna know how people think and also the best way to reach them or to sell that thing to them. Entrepreneurship meets psychology, meet marketing. And...

That ended up being what I did in the story that I told myself that made all three of these things make sense in tandem. Tandem, tandem. Jesus, gosh. But I really do think they made sense together. And I think as well, you can tell any story or combine any couple things, any major, minor to tell the story that you wanna create. Had I followed what I was supposed to do or what I thought I was supposed to do and just done marketing to become a marketer or get a career in marketing,

Josh Felgoise (04:53.346)

I would have never pursued psychology, and I would have never discovered what I found to be the most interesting classes in college. And at first, my psychology major could seem really confusing to the job market if I didn't want to become a psychologist or a psychiatrist or follow in that, like, doctoral world of those things. Here's my take on it, and I think it really does only apply to specific fields as

If you want to be an accountant, you obviously have to take the accounting courses that will get you the accounting degree so you can be trusted with people's audits and with people's money. Same with like consulting. You'll need the required classes to do whatever that is. I don't know. And if you wanted to do a degree in business or you wanted to become a chemist or you want to become a doctor, like you need obvious those required courses in those required fields. But if you're somebody like me who does not really know what you want to do or you go into college, not really knowing what you want to do or what you want to pursue.

I think you can spin it however you want as long as you have a story and a reason behind it. And I can almost guarantee that your passion will shine through much greater for pursuing the thing that made you most interested and excited. So I followed psychology and took what I found to be the most interesting and exciting classes. And I think differently because of following that. Also through my entrepreneurship minor in those classes, I learned so much.

that informed how I create this podcast and how I continue to do it every single day. So if you're like me and you entered college not knowing what you wanna do or who you wanna be or what career you wanna go into, follow the classes that interest you and excite you and go from there. I think it will take you in a direction that you'll be happy with. Don't turn away from what excites you just because you think it's not what you're supposed to do. Sometimes it will even end up informing and inspiring what you end up doing.

This remained true throughout my entire college career and still remains true now. Also at that time, the professors that I connected with most were the ones within those three categories of what I told you that I studied. And that actually takes me to my second point, which is about maintaining relationships with your professors. If you find a professor that you click with, which I look at as

Josh Felgoise (07:03.83)

somebody that interests you or somebody that maybe challenges you, somebody that makes you think or makes you think differently, or you feel like you could really learn from that person, I think you should make it a point to develop a relationship with that professor. Seek out a conversation with them. Maybe ask them a question after class. Be like, hey, I didn't have time to ask you this question during class and I really wanted your opinion or your thought on this. Send them an email about something that you thought about or something that happened that made you think of something that you talked about in class.

I think that form of relationship building can oftentimes be misconstrued for brown-nosing or sucking up, and I hate that idea. And I think there's a massive distinction between the two. The one that I'm talking about, I think, comes through as a genuine interest and excitement for what the professor or that person is talking about or teaching or the topic at hand, and the other one is obviously for a better grade. And I don't have to tell you the difference between the two, and I believe you know it too. One is genuine and one is not.

And if you're going about this in a genuine manner and looking to develop a relationship with this person, which is an entirely underrated relationship that we really don't talk about from college, an opportunity to meet somebody who could become a potential mentor or somebody that you could look for for advice or expertise or an opinion or a thought, somebody that you did not know before or have access to before that you now have access to from this like institution that I think is really underrated. I...

think it will come through in your delivery and you know the difference between the two of brown nosing, sucking up and brown as I always thought is a funny term like the shit on your nose, whatever. But you know the difference between the two like that and what I'm speaking about right now. And I think it's one of my favorite things that I did throughout college is make an attempt to build a relationship with a professor that I found really interesting or as I said earlier like challenged me. Those were often oftentimes one of the most interesting ones because they weren't the most exciting people or the most

friendly people, but they had something to say and they had a viewpoint and an opinion that I hadn't heard before. And I liked that type of conversation or that type of environment that challenged my thought or challenged my opinions. And through this relationship building, also never hurts to reach back out to one of these people for a reference for a potential internship or a job as their opinion actually holds weight in the world. And how can they do that or give you a reference if they don't know you or your character?

Josh Felgoise (09:24.032)

if you never go up and introduce yourself after class. So my advice to you here is to try and develop this relationship with at least one professor throughout college. It can be freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, senior year, doesn't matter when, but try to find one professor that you click with that excites you, that invigorates you, that you can maintain a relationship with throughout college and hopefully even after. And at the least least least, go up to your professors after the first week or so, first couple weeks and say, hi, my name is Josh, it's nice to meet you.

I'm really looking forward to taking this class. I'm excited about this and this. Again, I don't think that comes off as brown nosing or sucking up to the teacher, and I think that comes through in your genuine delivery of that message. So make sure you're being genuine. The third thing I want to talk about, or the third piece of advice that I want to share with you, is about working hard. I spent so much of my first semester of college going out and drinking and having a great time, and totally put my work on the back burner. And I think this type of thing can happen at any...

semester in college if you're caught up with something one thing or another and it honestly affected my GPA through the rest of my college career crazy how that happens right and I'm not saying this to tell you to not go out and put all your focus in work and don't make friends or have any fun or do any of this obviously I'm not saying that I'm telling you that I had both and did both and I ended up doing really well and having a great time at the same time what I'm trying to say is that you can make space for both things

and you can put your focus in both places. One will outweigh the other at times, for better and for worse. It happens, it happens to everybody. But be cognizant of your choices to do so. That's kind of all I'm saying. Sacrifice your social life when you need to and when you think you should. And more often than not, when you think you should, you probably should. And other times, if you think it's more important to go out and hang out with your friends, then do that too.

The cool part about this time in your life is that you get to make your own decisions and make your own mistakes and learn from those mistakes. So one way or another, you'll have to learn and have to change your behavior based on that. I learned that from fresh first semester freshman year, as I just said, and as I said in the other episode last week, I don't know if I talked about academics or not, but now I am here. So hopefully you're still here listening. If you came from last week, you'll have to learn it yourself one way or the other. And I absolutely think there's a balance that you will learn and you will create for yourself and you'll see all of your friends doing the same. And

Josh Felgoise (11:43.776)

Some may, some friends may have lighter course loads and some friends may be in a library all the time and you may fit in the middle or you may lean to one side of the scale or the other. but you'll figure it out as you go. And this is kind of where the comparison conversation comes in. You don't need to compare yourself to other people, but you do need to make sure that you're getting your shit done and making sure that you feel like you're in a good place academically and educationally, because at end of the day, that is what you're there to do, which is funny that we talk about so much other shit beside this part of it. And it's taken me.

64 episodes to talk about this at all so you can see where my priorities lie but I did spend a lot of my time working my ass off and there were a lot of times that I didn't do that as well so there's a balance you will find there's a balance I find I made mistakes you'll make mistakes you'll know some classes need a lot more work than others for me that was eco one economics that was not for me my I had one friend this okay okay talk about comparison he listens to this so shout out Kenny

I took this one class, Eco One, Economics 001. The first course of economics. Most people have to take it at college if they want to do, I had to do it for entrepreneurship. A lot of people have to do it for business classes for a lot. Like a lot of kids have to this class. It's one of the biggest classes that the college offered. was like a 150, that sounds like high, maybe like an a hundred person class, maybe more. And this class was at 855, I believe, which was one of the earliest classes they offer as well. And it was, we took it in our second semester, which was the time that we rushed our fraternity together.

I went to every single class. I paid attention as much as I could. And this is just one of those classes that did not click for me. Like anything I did, this class was not going to work for me. Like I could have spent hours and hours and hours studying. Like the highest I was going to get in this class was going to be a C. Like I was not going to do better. C's get degrees, by the way. So right on if you're with me in there. That was my only C in college. But and I wear it very proudly. I'm proud to admit that. But that kid, Kenny.

I knew from the start that I was going to have to work my ass off in this class and the best I was going to do was mediocre or average at best like there was no better than that and I knew that and I was going to have to my ass off and I met with the professor after one of the first exams that I got back and was like oh fuck like I got like a 60 or something on it flat D like really an ugly score maybe I even failed I don't know

Josh Felgoise (14:04.238)

But I put a lot of time into that test, like I really did. I put like so much effort into that test and this was just one of those subjects that did not click for me was never going to, never will. I'm never gonna become an economist. See, I can't even say the words, I don't belong in that field. So, economist. But I met with the professor after class, there was this Russian lady and she was like, this is not looking good for you. Like, this is not going to be your class. That is an offensive Russian accent and I'm so sorry to anybody who's Russian listening to this or any part of the Russian community for doing that.

But she basically told me that it was not looking good. that was her words, not mine. And she was like, you are not doing well. Like basically what she said was, this is not looking good for you. And I was like, I'm fucked. I'm so fucked. And I was going to have to work my ass off to get like pass to get by in this class. So I went every day. I studied really hard. I worked really hard. I did all I could. And I had this friend, Kenny, who would show up barely to this class if the professor was lucky.

halfway through the class, if he showed up to that class, would roll up in his pajama pants, maybe listen to half the lecture, show up to the test and do so well. Nothing made me, I'm still, as you can tell, angry about it. Nothing made me more angry than the fact that I put in all this work to get a C and he rolls up and puts his pencil onto the test and is like, okay, I'll take a B. How? He would roll up and do well and got an A.

That type of comparison pissed me off so much. And all that to say, he did great, I passed. I did pass, thank you very much. And I wear that C very proudly. C's get degrees, don't forget that. And that's what I'm talking about. Like if you're comparing the work you put into somebody else, I felt like all the work that I was putting in was gaining me nothing or gaining no traction. And looking at my friend who had to do barely anything could just pass with flying colors with just his brain. And like that, that.

was so frustrating. That's what I'm talking about. Comparing yourself to other students isn't going to do anything for you. will just make you mad like it did for me. So don't look around at what everyone else is doing, but make sure you feel like you're on your path and that you're gaining to what you want to get to. My fourth piece of advice is to call your mom or anybody in your family for that matter. For most of us, if not everyone, going off to college is our first time on our own. And it's so easy to get caught up in the bubble of college. I think that's true throughout all four years of college.

Josh Felgoise (16:27.886)

At times it really feels like its own world and our social lives are the center of it and everything else outside of that bubble or that world of college is completely irrelevant and almost non-existent. Especially when you're in the thick of it, like in the middle of the year or at a time where you're a few months in or you're in the middle of the year at the start of any of the years. So make an effort to give your parents a call. Tell them about what you're up to, how your classes are going, about the people you've met.

And also keep in touch with your siblings. It's really hard, and I remember it being really hard, to try and make time to make all these calls when you're trying to hang out with all of your friends and also make time for yourself. It can almost feel impossible sometimes, but at least make it an effort once a week. And if you're lucky enough to have grandparents, don't forget about them either. At the minimum, make sure you're giving somebody in your family a call at least once a week, if not more. Most likely, they are the people that...

are supporting you that got you here and continue to care about you every day. So make sure you tell them hi. It's not that hard to do and it's almost the least you can do. I remember there were times in college where this was not a priority of mine whatsoever and there would be spurts where I wouldn't call anybody and just be so in the thick of it having so much fun or just be so immersed in my own social life and in this own bubble that I would just forget about that all is kind of where this is all coming from. And it would feel like...

a while and when I would call somebody they'd be like, hey stranger. it would make me feel bad about it. So don't be that guy. Don't fall into that trap of not keeping in touch with everybody else in the outside world. I think the same goes for your high school friends or your friends from back home. It becomes really hard to keep in touch or stay in touch. But do your best to shoot somebody a text and say, hi, how are you? Or give somebody a call. I always think calls the best so somebody can actually get like the tone of your voice and hear how you're actually doing.

And I know especially guys, this is like we don't keep in touch as much as girls may do, but it's something I think is important and I bring on here as one of the big pieces of advice that I'm sharing because it's so easy to lose track of and lose touch with people. So make an effort as much as you can. And my final piece of advice, the fifth thing I want to tell you is don't forget to take it all in once in a while. As I said, when you're in it, you're in it. When you get a chance, take a step back and see what you've got around you.

Josh Felgoise (18:48.674)

Take mental or physical note of how it's all going, what you're doing, what you're up to, and who you're becoming. Check in and see if you like your thoughts and feelings around those things. If something doesn't feel right, try and see how you can make the changes. And if something does feel right, try and see how you can keep it. When you're two years out of college like I am now, you'll look back and remember just how good you had it, although every day may not feel like that. I know this is so much easier said than done, but don't take this time for granted.

Once in a while, take a step back and take it all in. Be grateful for the people around you. Be passionate about what interests you. And don't be afraid or embarrassed about what excites you. Those are my five pieces of advice that I wish I heard in college or before going into college, but I think they apply to every year of the experience. And next Tuesday, if I don't forget, I will also have more for you on this topic.

Thank you so much. Listen to guys that a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I'm Josh. I'm 24 years old and I'm here to find all the tips, advice and recommendations for everybody in their twenties. If you like this episode, I really hope you did. Please like subscribe and give this podcast five stars. That's one, two, three, four, five. If you have anything you me to talk about that should be talked about. That's my email, josh at guys.com j o s h at gu i s t dot com. Somebody actually emailed me last week, which was so crazy. Thank you to that person. I really appreciate that. you can also reach me at my DMS at the guy set th e g u y s e t on Instagram, tick tock, YouTube, all the social media is everything.

Thank you so much for listening and I will see you guys next Tuesday. See you guys.