If you had the power and will to mod anything and everything, what would you change about how Sims attend university? Make skills more difficult to achieve? Have them earn more skills? Maybe you're a European student or alumni and had a three-year study programme? Perhaps add a Master's course?

On the other hand, what do you think it's been done that make Sims too much of a utopia? For example, that it's virtually impossible to have students have a grade in a [C+, A-] range without carefully tending their progress and aborting all class-taking and studying once you're past the line. Or, maybe you think much more critical of higher education and believe that it's mostly an expensive, formal process that leaves you unskilled for real-life jobs, so you'd rather Sims need not make skills, but still make filling up the class meter harder. What about cheating on exams? Counterfeiting diplomas? Plagiarizing term papers instead of paying someone to write it for you in social credits (influence to write my term paper)?

Personally, I don't find the university in TS2 as fun because it gives off the American college culture a tad bit too much. For starters, the rest of the world calls second year students "second year students," not "wise fools," thankyouverymuch. Also, Greek houses were such a wild thing for me to imagine existing, yet, to my disappointment, do not actually exist in my country. My department, furthermore, is situated on a campus, but my campus is no Le Tour: there are simply several university buildings close to each other. No dormitories or student gyms, clubs, etc., at least not without a short public transport ride. I have to work part-time to pay for my day-to-day expenses and don't receive grants for simply passing exams. And after the three years, I get to choose to start working or pursue further studies as a graduate student. Gameplay wise, definitely transfer the challenge to be "make Sims finish uni" instead of "make Sims pass, but have a grade that doesn't make them end up on Dean's list every time."

Well I already have Uni modded pretty well, but I would make it so there were shorter and longer courses, so sims could gain different type of degrees. Certificates, bachelor's degree, masters. There should be full and part time classes and not restricted to YA.
Sims should be able to go to classes with a lecturer.

It does give off a very American feel (but then the game is American) Most people doing college or Uni here don't 'dorm in' or have 'Greek houses'. College sport isn't much of a thing so there are no mascots. I guess US uni is more lively though. Like a lot of things they make a bigger deal of it then we do. Youngsters here would rather do their college work then go be lively on the beach rather than at college itself so I can see why making it American type college makes it a fuller pack.

You know why Americans are all starry-eyed about college? Because it's the only walking community most of us will ever have a chance to live in. (And then Capitalism decided to ruin it with student loans and insane pressure, but Capitalism doesn't exist in Simtopia without a mod.)

It is, of course, my favorite expansion and I can't think of anything about the mechanic I'd change for myself; except that, like everything else, it should have had more flexibility built in so we didn't need quite as many mods. Most games have at least a "hard mode" and an "easy mode" that the player can change between. If they'd done that we'd still need a lot of mods to add more nuance than one game developer is ever going to invest in - but we'd already be able to do things like shorten or lengthen semesters and adjust grade gain.

First of all, I feel like it goes on too long. It doesn't feel fun to me. Second, it is very strange to make a college expansion pack and spend no time in the actual classroom. Third, because it's an expansion pack instead of the base game, the careers that require (or don't require) degrees makes no sense!

I have two sort of conflicting wants about University, based on the places I've studied and worked. It's my favorite expansion, though I get the complaints about it being too long. But I tried the 3 year mod and the experience felt way too hurried.

I would have liked to have not been able to send my student sims to the community lots of other campuses. I know, I can refrain from sending them there and limit them to their own campus, but it would have made designing campus lots for each university more meaningful. I was at university when that pack came out and remember thinking how strange my sims can wander willy-nilly over campuses they don't live at. Well, you could at my first school; there was nothing resembling security at an underfunded art school in the 90's unless someone overdosed.

I also would have liked to be able to send adults and elders; the student body at my workplace has a significant non-traditional population...displaced workers, lots of single moms of all ages. People who for whatever reason need to develop new skillsets. Older people who want to take an evening class with partners or friends. The community college in every sense.

Ready for Jo's list of mods for doing any of this

I agree with all this (including the "I already have Uni modded pretty well" :D), and would love to have different types of degrees. I sort of already have that, in that I have a career mod that gives a different bonus for sims who have completed at least 2 years of uni (except in my game it's almost always three years - I say that sims need a GPA of at least 3.0 to go on to their fourth year), but it would be nice to actually have appropriate memories etc. for it. One day, I will try to make a mod that lets Adults/Elders study for a degree online and part time - but that's a big project that will take lots of time to do.



While I appreciate the idea... I actually think this would be really dull to play. The game couldn't possible show actual material, so it would just be the lecturer babbling in Simlish at the students and a student occasionally asking a question. Sims can already get to know their professors, and can talk to them about their work.

The bit that really annoys me is that building relationships with professors (and especially woohooing them) gains grade points. Really, sleeping with a student is cause for the professor to be fired immediately and never get a job involving teaching again (hopefully). And lecturers really shouldn't be giving extra marks to students they like even if the relationship stays more professional. Sure, students who are struggling can learn how to do the material themselves if they talk to their lecturer - and I think most places have an opportunity to do that (Australian universities certainly do) - but it's definitely not "make friends with your professor and they'll give you more marks".



On a tangent here... Australian unis often do have residential colleges, and life there can be a bit more like the way it's portrayed in the game (except without the mascots or Greek houses). They're quite expensive, however, and can be horribly sexist (see several news stories a couple of years ago about Sydney Uni colleges - and I'm sure that behaviour wasn't restricted to Sydney). There is also a lot of drinking.

I like Uni - and there are more ways to play Uni than one. I do use some mods, the one-hour exam by Nopke and some to add gameplay, but most of what I do is pure vanilla game, yet I play Uni my way.
1. No Greek houses - I don't see the point.
2. I use 6-room dorms and there are 6 students in each - dormies may move in at times, I am flexible, depending on the situation.
3. Universities here are not American at all, so mine simply are not American at all. Universities here are sport centers - but no mascots, drama centers, music centers, etc. - and faculties have the necessary venues for that. There is swimming pools and gyms and that - but it is mostly used by students studying in a sport-related career.
4, Universities have clubs - and so my sims get that - I used to be a member of a debate club and the underwater-club (which was mostly about playing underwater-hockey).I make them up in groups based on their hobbies and send them to lots especially built for them.
5. I like using Sophie-David's mods - which call a sim to lecture. Now the lots are terrible, because I built them to test, but they work so well, so I still use them, with Sophie-David's mods, and I still find it extremely enjoyable when a sim who has formerly graduated turns up to lecture the new students. I also love the flamingo of the dance thing.
6. I do not have restaurants in my hood, but I do put a cafeteria in all the formal lots - sims have to eat, and if they spend all day researching in the science building, they get hungry. It may not be realistic, but I also put a shower or 2 on the lots, because it just makes it easier to keep the sims around for longer.
7. And because I built them lecture halls and academic buildings, they will use them, so they go to community lots all the time. No dorms look like hotels in my hood - (mine certainly did not, but it was not horrible either) - they have a bookshelf. Anything else, they skill on a community lot. Which means that time flies.

We do not go to college, we complete high school at 18, and if you are academically inclined, there are a number of universities you can attend, but it will also depend on what you want to study - not all of them offer all the courses.

This has got to be the very first thing I do with stock dorms when moving new students in. The way most of the dorms are structured, gives off that you don't have to leave that lot ever. Cooking, Mechanical, Cleaning, college research? See bookcase. Creativity? I'm sure there's an instrument or a painting easel lying around. Logic? Telescope and chess, of course. Charisma? Lock yourself in the bathroom. Body? Here's coach letting themselves in uninvited. Heck, feeling hungry? Here's free food because your sleeping quarters also happen to have a daytime chef! Feeling lonely much? 1-800-Call>College>Campus Directory. Want to visit the campus cafe? Now WHY would you WANT that for??

Also, I too am waiting for Jo's modlist -- even if it's just the essentials you use!

I would have scrapped the idea before it got into the planing phase and created a different expansion altogether. There is nothing in Sims 2,except maybe vacations that, in my opinion, is as much of a time-consuming, boring, joyless exercise in misery as having a Sim attend college. In fact, I'd rather have my toe-nails torn out than ever playing it again.
As such is the case, I have troubles with coming up with anything that would improve University in such a way that I would find it enjoyable or even tolerable.
Maybe instead of adding college, I'd overhaul how high school works and add its skill requirement and exam gameplay to that. Just have a bunch of different private/speciality schools a teenage Sim can attend to get a head-start in specific careers, each with a different uniform and a fee for the family to pay (though scholarships would be available). This would also add more gameplay and importance to the teen life stage, so it'd be a win/win situation.



But why would you spend time in the classroom? During lectures all you'd do is stare at your Sim sitting there while some NPC professor would brabble on in Simlish and for the rest...well not every degree is science or drama where you could turn labs and rehearsals into gameplay challenges.

Believe me, having sims to go a lecture wouldn't make University any better. *Looks at Sims 3 University Life*

With the amount of college interactions and how immersive it currently is, I think EA did a good job. I agree that having the game take us to the class the student is taking would be too boring and uneventful - at most, perhaps several STEM majors would get an interactive class (maybe as interactive as certain TS3 Ambitions careers), but the rest would be just half-baked and boring compared to them. Imagine having to interrupt whatever party/drama that was going on at your home lot because your Sim had to go to class. Too many loading screens to enjoy that.

I would, however, like it more if interactions in TS2 could be modular like TS3 ones are. For example, when Sims 3 Sims go jogging, you get to choose between them pushing themselves to their limits (to gain the skill faster), jogging casually, jogging so lightly that they don't break a sweat etc. Haven't played TS3UL so I don't know for sure, but I can assume that "go to class" interactions have modes such as "actually pay attention," "scroll thru twitter," "work on something else," etc.

Did they though? All Campus life is, is essentially a regular neighbourhood, but with a lot less options. There's really nothing you can do in a campus neighbourhood that you can't do in the normal neighbourhood, where you also have a lot more other things to do.

Sorry, meant to say, how immersive EA made Sims taking classes/the whole studying part of studying. They didn't go into making it need a control freak of a player to have a Sim graduate.

University life for me meant the chance to finally be a grown up, so 'i always get rid of things like the coaches (mod them out or lock them out) and most of my students cook their own meals and move out of the dorm to shared houses or flats as soon as they can afford it. I think EA can be glad they didn't have me design this specific EP because I am a really nerdy sort who loved studying and if I had the necessary modding skills I would add more study oriented tasks: maybe obligatory research projects for the final term, where sims would have to influence their fellow students to participate as test subjects? Or maybe they'd have to take tests for each skll they'd studed and they'd risk loosing a skill point if they failed? I'd want uni to be a bit hard. I love Justpetro's clubs, I think I'm going to do something like that next time I get to play uni too, because hanging out with other students with similar interests and thinking we were clever and intellectual together was one of the best parts of uni. I'd like a chance for my sims to do postgraduate studies and get an academic career and grow old inside their ivory tower, that's another thing I'd mod in if I only could. There should be consequences of failing or doing well in uni: more restricted or better career options and the like. And a chance for students who dropped out to study as adults or at least get their degrees a different way.
But I think to make the uni EP all it should be, you'd really need better party mods. More sims dancing where dancing is possible, more fun for the sims who dance and a chance at chatting up potential love interests while dancing. I don't know about students in the rest of the world, but students in my home town spent at least two or three nights a week on the dance floor!

Luckily length and majors to careers are are completely modable, except the no classroom part. You could simulate it though.

Let's be clear. I loved Uni in real life. I just find it terrible in the Sims games, and especially Sims 2. Same with holidays and vacations (though I guess vacations wouldn't be so bad if the Sims at least aged while in the Destination Neighbourhoods).

I don't mean sitting and watching like that, I am thinking more the practical classes with material similar to how I make playable schools. For me sim school is the place for kids and teens to learn skills and socialize. I have kids cooking, gardening, painting, making pottery etc. So the class could have a short span of time for the teacher to speak and an assignment book, but that shouldn't be the whole class. Like the Simlogical school system I would play as the teacher, enroll the students and have them appear. In fact I could probably do this with a main hood college that I create similar to schools for kids and teens. I never let the game box me into one way of thinking, mods exist to let you break out of that. The workbook would need to boost the uni grade bar or I would have to do so with another mod. I am sure something like this could be modded on more of a college level.

If you have never seen the Simlogical school system mod, when you play the kids homes they catch the bus at 8, get dropped back at 5 (no homework) Then at the school you can make it what you like, so it can be all bookwork, no bookwork, a variety of skill items or a big socialathon. So when playing uni I am sure they could be made to disappear like normal.

I will be adding non-default easier and harder version of the EA majors to start with and it's being considered as they go to live on the high school campus though it's not for everybody and even when the capus is in place not all kids growing up can actually attend high school and some might attend and end up flunking out or dropping out while some kids never even got any schooling at all or got home-schooled because of living too far from the local school or from the nearest one.I've Modded out the uneducated fear and the want to always attend campus is another thing to be Modded out as not all towns get one right away and many won't for at least a few generations and it might take even longer in my PEC as that is starting in the early 17th century.

I'd nuke the money paid out each semester for any grade less than an A. For A's, I could see it as a scholarship. Less than that, well, the sim has to pay tuition to attend.

Edited to add: It also bugs me how scattered the required skills are. I'd make the skills required more related to the careers that each major specifically ties into. Also, even if the skill is pertinent, you shouldn't have to jump from 1 to 4 within one semester in, say, Charisma.

I would just use the career rewards and aspiration rewards unlocked to buy mode and a Mod that made more studying of skills available to bookcases and more functionality to the scultures of stacked books as I use all of those in my game and have more options for the bookcases and all skills are available on any of them.Charisma podiums from the career rewards can be used to learn the skill and they also earn money at the same time and I'll be using a tuition Mod so some sims will pay to attend a private high school while others attend public high school for free.

Oh I forgot about the coaches. Seeing as they always target my Sims and never dormies, it's nothing but one big pain in the butt. I'd remove them altogether OR have them slap around the enemy mascot and leave my Sims alone.

When I'm only letting students skill autonomously, incidentally, and when they roll appropriate wants (not just skill wants, but wants to pass the semester, participate in a certain activity, make honors, or write a term paper/research/do an assignment, which is pointless unless their grade bar is sufficiently open to admit improvement), if it weren't for coaches, some of my college sims would never get body points if the coaches didn't break into their homes and fat-shame them, so I don't mind the coaches as much. I do have to keep an eye on them when sims are about to go to a final so they don't disrupt it, but otherwise I can just wait till they wander off and cancel the workout. The llama mascots and cheerleaders can be annoying but they can also be hilarious when they cheer inappropriately - I love when they're cheering in the background of first-woohoo cutscenes. And I've even gotten some good out of the evil cows, which I regard as game hazards that can be evaded or used for dramatic purposes. One thing I would do, though, if I'd had the doing of it, is make cows easier to attack. Any student should be able to fight a cow mascot in the wake of one of their disruptive activities, and anyone who's been involved in a cow mascot incident should be able to attack them on sight.

Also - why the heck are streakers adults?!? If you want to move a streaker in you have to do it in the main hood; you can't have Joe with No Boundaries wandering around the frat house in his altogether. And that's just wrong!

Wow, that just makes streakers even more inappropriate!

In my uni days there was a rumour about a student who had a tiny car - he went somewhere one day, and when he returned, some others have taken the car apart and put it back together in his dorm room.
So - cows being stupid? Totally fine by me

Edit: I have decided that the streakers are what we tend to call "eternal students" - they pass just enough subjects so that the uni can't kick them out, but they do get kicked out of dorms eventually; then live close to campus and remain sources of fun. That is my explanation for them

Myself, studying for what is considered an eternity longer for some (read: parents), I take note that the moment I start taking my clothes off and start running about naked, I should truly then start bringing my studies to the close. Finally that being shy about my body comes off as a good thing though! :eternalstudentemoji: