That class meter mod sounds interesting, is that something you downloaded/uploaded or self-made and un-posted?

It's made by someone else and available for download. I'm laying in bed right now and typing this on my phone, so I don't have access to my laptop to check. This looks something like it:
https://lazyduchess.tumblr.com/post...xam-fail-chance

However, I don't remember there being any sort of pie menu like pictured in the download thread, so my actual mod might be from someone else. I'll cross-check it tomorrow.

Edit: yup, that's the one!

topp; your avitar...gasp, choke, giggle. Reminds me of a form I had to fill out asking what PRONOUN I use. Well, since people can even pick a PLURAL pronoun, I wanted to write "it".

The singular "they" first showed up in writing in 1375, so unless you're old enough pre-date that, I suggest you leave that attitude in the distant past where it belongs.

My first forays with university were a string of single, sole, sims who experienced a lot of ennui with a side of Kafka. Shit, no that makes it sound interesting. It was dull and kinda lonely, not just for my playables, but for the poor dormies too. I sussed that no one was having any fun.

I started modding lots, improving navigation and adding interesting, useful objects. Hot tubs, photo booths. More vending machines. More caffeine. I made new lots. A hockey rink. A fishing hole with hot springs and a bar. I started playing the frats (which I despised in Real Life) as playables. I got more invested.

By the time I tried the shorter semester mod, I had to reject it. My sims wanted the three day semesters. They were busy!

This summer of 2023 I had a baby bump of 12 girls and three guys. all born in game, work there way through university. I spread them out among the dorms and private houses. It was great fun in rotation. A lot of those sims had their character break out, and I got a really good sense of who they are and what they want. The length of university and the open context of the setting really offers a deep dive into character that may not occur if the sims are stuck in their family homes, marrying their first kiss, breeding, buying more crap and grinding away at some random 9-5 Maxis career. It's good.

Meant no offense.

Hyvä Suomi! I'm a Käärijä fan and the first thing I thought when seeing that picture online was that's it's too hilarious not to have as an avi on MTS. The pronouns are quite simple and possibly easy enough for you to guess:

that's a dude in a wig.

Take on learning Finnish, they do just that for everyone. Se this, se that. In the meantime, learn to appreciate the flexibility of your own language, how nouns can become verbs (my brain isn't braining today), or I don't know, how the word "they" can be entered in a stupid fill-out form to make someone out there who's filling it out content with the little things in life.

For MTS you are required to make a sim version of that picture lol.

I second that. It's a MUST! :D

I just saw this year's Suomi entry:

I usually race through University with a college time adjuster within the span of one sim week and manage to woohoo with one of the other residents on the last day before they get kicked back to the bin.
Maybe I'm doing it wrong but it seems any relationships that develop don't do much in the main game, so, I mainly do it for the education when appropriate for the sim, because I have a mod that limits career advancement without a degree. And somehow, the whole fraternity stuff feels just so 90s North American Hollywood movie to me, I have no real interest in playing that part. And getting hit on by profs, ugh. I feel this part of the Sims2 has aged very badly.

I modded the game to remain living in my college house after graduation. That's what motivates me to care for and improve it. Maybe if it was a shared family home for multiple generations of students, it could also work out. But I don't like controlling families large enough to have an age diversity. One loophole that remains is that the house costs 1/4th of its value. You are encouraged to load it with luxurious stuff before the purchase instead of letting them gradually add to it. If the house was shared, it would still cost less to its owners in a more organic way.

The other aspect that I don't like it is how forced it feels like you are not in control and are pushed around by some social worker puppet masters at maximum priority. Everybody has this recurring want to go to college, which takes up a slot, and they get a memory if they didn't go. Then the exit on graduation is also forced. They rob you of your youth by transforming you into a young adult before it is time. And nobody gets a bad memory about that.

I've never had a greek house because it is back to controlling a big family. From what I understand, it's like living on a commlot where visitors can come and go and use your facilities, and not a anything notably different.

As someone who's played through all the University expansion packs from Sims 2 to Sims 4, the Sims 2 is joint 2nd with the Sims 4, with the Sims 3 university experience being my favorite. Sims 4 is way too grindy and also very long, your sim pretty much has to put their whole life on hold if they want to study and get a good grade.

As for the Sims 2, I don't mind the length nor do I mind it being easy, but just sorta find the whole thing as unrelatable being a current 22-year-old attending university. I get that the Sims 2 is pretty much a Late 90-early 2000s simulator so it represents that time period, but people my age don't really do things like the young adults in the Sims 2 do things anymore. I wish my experience at university had been half as good as my Sims experience it lol. Don't get me wrong, I get it's a product of its time, so I'm not really criticizing it for that but I feel really disconnected from the whole expansion due to my own personal experiences. Without my personal disconnect, I find the whole pack mostly alright. I don't mind it taking long as I find sims' lives too short in the first place, so I enjoy the extra time to get stuff done like falling in love, making friends, working towards their LTW if applicable, etc

I love uni. It's like a 24/7 party and hookups in between madly dashing to class and trying to cram a semester's worth of work into the last 5 hours before finals. Just like IRL. I feel sad for today's college students that they miss out on this experience.

j/k I think the Sims college experience is based more on 80's comedy movies than what things were really like in the 90's. But it's fun to watch.

Too long/out of proportion with the regular hood, too repetitive with all the semesters, not challenging to get them to pass, if they fail it just makes them stuck there even LONGER, original uni degree careers made zero sense.

Cyjon's Semester Changes + 48 hour semester mod + unicareershack + my own gameplay rules + a variety of college lots, and it's enjoyable. Vanilla college is not, IMO.

My rules for myself:

Teens transition to uni at 4/5 days left in age, and they all go on an even day. Everyone in the same cohort goes at the same time, along with any townie/NPC teens they have any relationship at all with.

My normal hood is set at 2 sim days to 1 "real life" year, with some randomness built in for the adult/elder stages. I advance the lot sync timer 1 day per semester. So college does go a little "slower" than the main hood but it doesn't take me a lot longer to play through. It does mean that non-graduates end up with a few less days overall in their lifespan, but I don't mind - I think on average, people with higher education live longer anyway.

Everyone starts out in dorms. They are allowed to live in dorms for the first 2 years, then they need to find a shared house or self-fund their own house. I have played a bit with Greek houses on the Maxis campuses but in general I don't play with them because they don't really exist in UK uni culture. When I did play with them, I used them a bit like the secret society.

Dormies can form part of a shared house. If they end up with a significant relationship with a playable, I let them graduate then townify them as an adult. If they remain basically an "extra" then I just re-dormify them and let them get recycled to the next cohort of students.

I don't make them study/skill unless they do so autonomously, or roll a want to.

If they get on academic probation, they skip to the next semester (so miss out on the aspiration-related benefit) but I toggle them back onto probation. Fail twice and you get kicked out. This is much harder to come back from, since the skill gates raise and Cyjon has them skip every other semester anyway.

I have inteen but I don't allow families on campus. If a student gets pregnant, they either need to drop out, put the baby up for adoption or transfer the baby to live with someone else who is not on campus (e.g. a grandparent, the baby's other parent).

Uni degree required for Education, Law, Politics, Science, Medical, Architecture, Natural Science and Oceanography. The others not. Sims can join these careers without a degree if they age up to them from the teen job.

I build "study" lots for each major (or a group of) and restrict it to allow visitors from that major or undeclared.

Also a library, sports centre, arts centre, cafeteria, student union, small parade of shops (groceries, hairdresser, pharmacy, bookshop, merchandise) outdoor spaces to hang out, and some nightlife - generally a dance club, a grunge club/gig space, gay bar, bubble bar, pub, restaurant...

In my megahood, I themed each of the campuses (Fiesta Tech = maths and sciences, Le Tour = History/Literature/Politics, Sim State = Everything else.) This was fun and I would consider doing themed campuses again but I've never had such a large hood. I had rules about entry to each university, the degrees confer entrance to different careers, and if sims wanted to transfer from one to the other they have to have enough grade/skill to do so.