Luckily morning classes are fairly rare…

Now that your sim is in the new and exciting world of Higher Education, it is time to attend class, study hard and make sure to graduate with the highest grade. After all, your future income depends on your success! Luckily, in The Sims 3, you have all the time in the world, or very nearly so. Your sim does not age while in university, and if you studied diligently in your youth and then picked the lightest course load, you should be able to breeze through the semester.

Each semester is one week, or nearly so. You arrive on Sunday, and go home late on Saturday. However, the study progress bar is only active from your first class on Monday to after your final exam on Friday (typically at noon). This is the time range in which it makes sense to study.

When you arrive at Uni, your first day will be spent getting settled and going to orientation. Your academic progress bar will not be visible until your first class, on the second day. Classes usually begin at noon, but some classes begin at 8 and some at 16 (4 PM). If you have taken on the challenge of a double course load, classes will not collide, but there won’t be much time to recharge between them. Pretty much run from one to the other. (This is where having bought the MultiTab gadget comes in handy, as starting to listen to a Tabcast gives an instant joy boost. Craziness drink from the Mixology skill (Late Night expansion) will also keep you from crashing your fun bar by working hard for two lectures in a row.)

Now, assuming you started with a normal course load, you should be fine no matter what. Since last we spoke, I have sent an almost completely unskilled Sim to Uni, and he still pretty much breezed through it. The academic bar starts at half full, and sinks very slowly as the hours pass and your sim begins to forget. But even listening normally during lectures will be enough for a passing grade and then some. If you actually read in a textbook occasionally, so much the better. You can also read on your smartphone for a quick boost. Each major also has its own special skill object (like a sketchbook for art) which you get for free when you arrive, together with textbooks. I don’t think even Norway coddles its students that much!

Perhaps the best way to increase your grades is to improve the relevant skills. When you do the aptitude test, you can see which skills belong to which major. Some are obvious, like painting and guitar for Art. Some not so much, like Mixology for Business. But raising your skills will now automatically improve your grades, and pretty fast too. In fact, you may want to keep your sim in check if they love raising their skills, so you don’t use up all this skilling in one semester. If you know your sim is crazy about a skill, this is one of the few times it might be an idea to take a double course load, especially if this is a skill that you can raise by having fun, like painting and guitar.

My recommended study activities, in order:
-Classes. You are only allowed to skip one, and not the final exam on Friday.
-Skilling, because you will need those skills in your job.
-The dedicated skill object. Even if your skill is maxed, using this will still raise your grades.
-Textbooks or smartphone.
-Study groups, a bit of a hassle for the player to organize.

Perhaps it is just because I am new to the expansion, but I found double course load to be the upper limit. You can pile on even more courses, but that just sounds foolhardy. After all, you don’t age while studying, so you can safely return to learn more another week. And there are many other things to do on campus. More about that next time, hopefully!

If you want to get the most out of your higher education, you should make sure to study while you are a teen. Although it is not necessary to take it to extremes…

Unlike in The Sims 2, you can no longer send teenagers to the university: You have to wait until they become young adults. And even then, it may be a good idea to wait a bit, or at least not take it all at once. You can now stagger your semesters throughout your sim’s life, and there are benefits and drawbacks to consider.

But before you get that far, be aware that your simulated children can still prepare for college by increasing their skills and getting good grades. In fact, if you are really nuts about college, you may want to pick the right traits for their scholarships. Yes, personality traits now influence what scholarships you get. Want to study arts? You may want the artistic trait, or the virtuoso or even natural cook. The scientific studies call for handiness, and of course if you want something sports related you want to be athletic. In practice, these traits won’t be necessary unless you go to college really early and are broke. Skills alone should give you both scholarships and study credits (so you don’t start with an empty study bar).

The requirements are not so bad. I started with a teenager in a new neighborhood, and after a few years as a young adult she got more scholarships than she needed for tuition. In fact, she came home from Uni with more money than she had before she enrolled. She hadn’t maxed all the relevant skills either, but she had made a decent progress during her teen years.  (I have bought the official MultiTab gadget, which helps quite a bit with learning and fun; but on the other hand, sims born in-game can begin learning skills early on.)

Children as well as teens and adults can now get a bonus moodlet from having studied enough. There are new ways of studying too, which we’ll hopefully get back to next time.

Before enrolling in college, make sure to take the aptitude test. It is necessary to get scholarships and study credit. But you can also take it just to see what you need to work more on. It gives a detailed breakdown of your strengths and weaknesses for each major. The test is part of the university package you get from the Llama mascot shortly after the game starts with the new expansion. It is probably a bad idea to delete this.

The benefit of going to Uni right away is that you will jump into level 4 of your first job, if the degree is relevant for the job. But even if you get your degree after you have started working, you should be promoted accordingly (I have not tested that, but the game says so) and you will definitely advance faster at higher levels (this I have tested.)

Note that you can return to Uni later for another major if you decide to change your career later in life – or if you just enjoy streaking, juice parties and unethical experiments on plants, sims and combinations of the two.

How long time you want to spend on campus is largely up to you. You can take one or two semesters at a time, then you must return home. But you can enroll again at once, although you should probably consider going through your inventory and see if there is something you can leave at home.

Time does not pass on your home lot while you are away. (It uses the same mechanics as World Adventures, for those who have that vacation-oriented expansion.) It is possible to send one sim from a household to university and let others stay behind. Since there is a drive from your home to the point of departure, you will need to get a babysitter if you leave small children behind. But your family does not age while you are away.

On the other hand, the people in University town do age while you are home. Or perhaps that is the work of the Story Progression mod? I don’t think so, though. It makes sense that they should age with you. They didn’t do that in The Sims 2, though. Then again, nobody did, not even your neighbors.

I recommend starting with the minimum course load the first time. It is surprisingly hard even for a genius with maxed mixology skills to max the study bar with double course load, while it is quite easy with just one. And there are plenty of things to spend your time on. But try with 1 semester and a minimum number of study credits the first time, and increase later if it seems too easy.

As for the things to do in college, we shall hopefully get back to them next time.

Run – don’t walk – to buy the new expansion pack for The Sims 3! OK, perhaps not, but it is a backpackload of fun.

I have to admit that University was my favorite expansion for The Sims 2, but I know this is not a universal view. So I may be biased, but hey, it is my site and my review, so. Let me say it from the start: Sims 3 University Life is my new favorite. It has pretty much all the things that made the original cool, only more of everything. It does not add quite as much to the game, in terms of careers and advantages, but still plenty enough that your sims might want to go to university even if you had no other reasons. I hope to convince you that there are plenty of reasons.

So you did not play The Sims 2: University? What’s this all about?

The Sims 3 is a “life simulator” game. Like the two previous games, it lets small imaginary people go about their lives in your computer, and you can either watch them, help them or hinder them. For each version, the sims (the simulated people) have become more intelligent and more complex. Hopefully you already have The Sims 3, since it is a requirement for all the expansion packs; this is the 9th.

The purpose of going to university in the world of the sims is much the same as in the real world: Broaden your outlook on life and become a better, wiser person. Get a better paid job. Find a cute person to share your future with, or a lot of cute persons to share your present with. Get away from mom and the neighbors and experiment with things that would give them a heart attack. Meet people who share your interests. Overcome fears and insecurities. Have fun, lots and lots of fun. Any one of these, or several of them, may seems a compelling reason to go to university.

In the real world, higher education is becoming painfully expensive, at least if you don’t live here in Norway where most of it is tax-financed (and much of the tax is on the oil industry). As usual, Sim Country is more like Norway. There is a tuition fee, but is rather moderate. If you have decent skills before you go, you could easily get more in scholarship than you pay for a semester. Be sure to take the aptitude test first to get the scholarship.

What is new from The Sims 2: University?

Much like the base game itself, University Life has expanded the details. But there are also some fundamental differences.

-University is now for adults. No more sending teens to college. All adults, even elders, can attend. In fact, it may be easier to study if you have some work experience. Skills and work experience contribute toward scholarships and study credit. Be sure to take the aptitude test before enrolling, to get these bonuses.

-You can take several majors, one after another. As a result, you can spend a considerable time in college if you want to catch them all, or if you just want to live half a century longer. (You still don’t age while in University.)

-You stay in University for one or two semesters, then return to your hometown. You need to enroll again for the next year. This breaks up the stay at Uni, lets you exchange things in your inventory at home, and allows you to stagger your University experience throughout your adult life. But if you want to return to Uni immediately, you can just enroll again. Oh, and you can also work on several  majors before you complete any of them, if you for some reason feel the urge.

(This may in part be an effect of using the same engine for University as for the vacation expansion, World Adventures. You even need to “call someone abroad” when you want to speak to your dormies from home. University really is a different country! I knew it!)

-New studying. All use of skill objects that fit your major will contribute to your final score. for instance, as an arts student you will gain study credit for sketching, painting or playing the guitar. You can also read relevant books and even study on your smartphone, or do group study, but the fun and easy way is to do what you probably want to do anyway, use skill objects. Each major gives the student a portable skill object as you start, so there is no excuse not to. But you can still use other relevant skill objects.

-New social groups: There are now 3 “castes” or social groups: Nerds, jocks and rebels. The first two should be familiar to most, but rebels are mostly art students living on the edge of the law: Painting on walls and parking lots, instigating protests, and selling cheat sheets for the exams. Fame within a social group can give benefits, included an extra personality trait. (Unfortunately you cannot pick this trait – it is either random or typical of the social group.) It is also possible to unlock one of three extra careers this way.

-There are fewer majors, and no careers that are unlocked by study alone. You just start at a higher level and advance faster in the relevant career.

-Extra personality trait when you graduate successfully! And you get to pick this one! Yess!

-Missing: Extra want slots. Sorely missed. You can never have too many of those.

-Possibly missing: Secret society. Then again, with it being secret, I may just not have found it.

-Possibly missing: Getting good grades by socializing the teachers. They seem to play much less of a role this time. But again, I may be mistaken, since I don’t play overly social sims.

-Dorms are more homelike and less prison-like. There are bedrooms with one bed, two beds and a double bed. You can assign beds to playables and non-playables alike, and program doors to allow a list of specific sims.

-Sims now have smartphones! Social networking is a new skill, and sims can surf the Internet, blog and unlock new apps as they grow more skilled.