Sal Khan's story: Wrapping up

- So we've already gone through a bunch of videos on how to make your application for college good, how do you choose a college, how do you figure out if you can pay for college through financial aid and other things. And so, we're now at the point that hopefully, you've gotten into a few of these colleges and you're in the position to decide where you wanna go. From my experience, I remember, as you just learned from other videos, even when I was young, I had heard of this thing called MIT and I wanted to go there, but it was at the end of your senior year where you actually do have your options in front of you and then the reality is, okay, I'm not gonna go to some place 'coz I heard of it or because I heard it's good for this or that. I should really feel like it's a place where I can live and thrive for four years. And so I encourage you to talk to other people who graduated from that school, learn not just what it's like academically, what's it like culturally, what's the campus like, what's the vibe like. Those brochures, actually, sometimes you might say, "Oh, they're just marketing material from the university," and that's what they are, but they do they tell you a lot about what they view themselves as, what their culture is. If you have the resources to, you know, I didn't at that time, but if you can visit the school, especially if it's out of town, try to. If you don't have the resources, I hear there's now ... There's oftentimes these fly-in programs where the school will provide resources for people to visit and make sure it's a good fit for them. If I was in that position again, I would definitely have taken up the schools on that. Once you make that decision, figuring out the school where it's a good fit, where you feel like you're gonna be able to spend at least the next four years, then it's time to transition. I remember that a ton. On one level, it's kind of the most exciting moment in your life and the scariest. I mean, you know, there's a few other moments in your life that probably compete with it. When you're getting married, the birth of your first and actually second or third child as well. But yeah, they're all exciting moments, but this is one of them. (laughs) You're getting real independence. With real independence comes all sorts of possibilities, some of which are scary, new responsibilities as well. I remember when I was going through that transition, it was really helpful, I had an older sister. I remember right when I ... I actually flew from New Orleans, which is where I grew up to Providence, even though I was going to school in Boston, 'coz my sister was at Brown University in Providence. And so I spent a little time living with her and actually, that was a really good way to kind of even ease into the like what's it like to be a young person living by myself? How do I do my own laundry? How do I boil a ramen? (laughs) How to do all these? What's a meal plan? Then I went to campus orientation, and my sister told me this and I tried to really live this when I went through orientation in the beginning of my freshman year is, it was a chance to kind of be myself but also redefine who I was. In high school, there's all these, hey, maybe I'm not in that crowd or I'm in that crowd, but in college, I went with a mindset that I think it was a very healthy mindset of like look, everyone here is new, everyone here is dying to make friends, I'm gonna go out of my comfort zone, walk up to people be nice to them, talk to them, smile at them, and build a friend circle and talk to people that I might have been intimidated by or that I might not have ... I know as much about or have as much in common with. I think the more I did that, the more it just made my college experience that much better. We're kinda at the end of this, "How do you go to college?" thing, this "How do you go to college" journey, and it's a super exciting one. I envy a lot of you all for being in the position that you're in. It's a really neat time of your life. But on another level, we're kind of at just the beginning of your adventure, so hope you enjoyed this.