I graduated from high school this past May and on this coming Monday I will start my first day of College. My conflict is why does it feel so different then when I started high school. I 'm not worried. Infact I am actually kind of excited. Does everybody feel this way? or is it just me? Let me know what you think. Thanks 
Ok, I don’t have the answer to your actual question, but i have a realy good one to the question i thpought you were going to ask. so here goes.
My guess as to why being at college is different than being at high school: the people who don’t want to be there, aren’t there. this played a major role in high school for me, all that negitive energy…
I guess this might contribute to your different attitude toward it, it did for me.
Let me guess, you’re getting to leave your folk’s house?
At college you get to party all night, experiment with all kinds things your parents probably won’t want me to tell you about, and you might actually learn something if you drink enough coffee the night before the test.
I was estatic before I went to college, and it’s still the best time of my life (granted, I just graduated this June).
For me, college rocked!. Six of the best years of my life :D.
You’ll make some of the best friends you’ll ever have, you’ll have some of the most fun times, and some of the most profound experiences you’ll ever have. Not to mention the growth, both intellectually and personally.
College feels different from high school because it is different from high school. For starters, you’re four years older and you’ve got that whole adolescence thing behind you. Then there’s the whole bit about living on your own (assuming you’re not living at home and commuting). And of course the deeper subject matter that you’ll be learning…
Yep… all said college is quite a bit different from high school. And yep… college rocks.
You will get better responses to this question in our forum called In My Humble Opinion. I’ll move it there for you.
College is the second adult experience a person has (driving a car being the first). You’re not a kid anymore. The college won’t call your parents when you miss class like they did in high school. You’re all grown up now. That’s the way I and almost everyone else felt about it.
It is a unique feeling, isn’t it?
Because it is different. When you went to high school, you probably already knew most of the kids you were going to be attending classes with. When starting college, you maybe know 2 or 3 people going in… the rest are strangers. You were also, to some extent, told what classes to take in high school, whereas in college, you can pretty much set your own schedule. Probably the biggest thing though, is the new independence. Although you are probably not going to be truly independent, you will get your first real taste of it (assuming you are leaving your parents’ house to attend school elsewhere). You, and only you, will be responsible for all of your actions. The decision whether or not to attend class each day, or the decision whether to party tonight or study. I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface, and I’m sure others will add more to this. Whatever you do, good luck, and remember… study, study, study…
College is the intersection between childhood and adulthood. You have most of the privileges of adulthood. No parents checking up on you. Go where you please; do what you please. You also have a lot of the benefits of childhood: you’re young and energetic, living in college is usually economically easier than the “real world” (depends on how much your parents are putting in, and how expensive the school is. My parents are contributing $0, but I still get paid to go to school, so I get independence and economic security.), you get to party with abandon, and just be generally irresponsible. Problem is balancing the school work so you don’t get kicked out of school. That would suck. I’m going back for my sophomore year this very morning! I’m so excited to be going back!
In high school, popularity was everything. In college it doesn’t really matter. Sweat pants worn to class? Heck yeah, when it’s 8 AM in December.
You get your first experience of living life by your own rules and trying out your own ideas when you please.
And, you are one step closer and have the constant spectre hanging over you of “What will I do with the rest of my life, and how does this drectly effect it?”
Also, finals week is a wee bit more intense.
But, college was great. I liked it so much I am already heading back for grad school after being out for 2 years.
Why College is Different from High School
by ChrisCTP, non-traditional freshman
College costs a lot of money. [Public] high school costs almost nothing.
College cafeterias offer something resembling real food. High school cafeterias offer recycled cardboard.
Colleges have many buildings, all of which have ashtrays in front. High schools have one building, and you get to spend three days in the basement of it if you’re caught smoking on campus.
In college, some of your classmates might be older than your professor. In high school, your classmates are all as young as you.
And, like others said, there’s more independence, and you’re sharing the school with people who actually want to be there.
In lots of ways it’s the same, though. For instance, you still have to take stupid, icky math classes even if (1)you’ve managed to live just fine over the last seven years without using a bit of algebra, and (2)your major (say, Computer Graphics and Multimedia with emphases on Art and Communications) has nothing whatsoever to do with math. :::grumble:::
I hated high school, but I loved college.
The difference basically is this. You are forced to go to high school for X number of years. You are not forced to go to college. That choice is yours. Your professors at college do not really care if you attend class or not – they’re not going to call your folks. They look at it like, you pay the money, if you want to pass, you will do the work necessary to do so. They will not force you to attend their classes.
You can cut class or skip ‘school’ with impunity. No one will care. In some courses, they don’t care how many days you miss – just so long as you pass the finale exam. (I cut 90% of one of my classes, took the final and passed with flying colors.)
The freedom is somewhat ‘heady’ and cool. No one looking over your shoulder, no one forcing you to attend and your classmates all want to be there, so few, if any, sullen, sulky attitudes.
Plus, you can party all you want and have a bunch of fun – especially if you’re college is away from home. You might even have your first apartment then – a real freedom – or share one with other people.
College is much more relaxed. The professors are often more willing to help you out if you request it also because you want the help and not because to are forced to get it or fail and be stuck in that ‘d**n’ place another year.
I even met professional students! These are older people who can afford college and go all of the time just to learn anything they can learn.
The basic attitude is that everyone wants to be there and they are not forced to attend, like in HS. That makes a big difference.
I must be weird, or an alien or something. I’m finishing up college right now, no way would I look back on the time spent in college as “the best years of my life.” If God told me it doesn’t get any better than this I’d probably shoot myself now.
It’s probably mostly my own fault I didn’t have a better time in school. I was pretty indifferent most of the time in high school when I wasn’t actively hating it. I was indifferent when I first went to college. After years spent studying a subject I hated I transferred schools and changed majors. That helped a little, but the gains made there were offset by the fact that I had to work twice as hard to support myself after changing schools. So that sucked. I will be relieved when I graduate. Only then will my life really begin. I think I’ve missed out on the good times most people associate with college, partly because my personality wouldn’t allow it and partly because I had to work so hard to make it through. I’m just glad it will be over soon.
[Administrative note: this post was actually made by “Lizard,” his friend forgot to sign off the board when she was done using his computer . . . and he forgot to check. your humble TubaDiva )
[Edited by TubaDiva on 08-26-2000 at 07:12 PM]
Um…actually, my professors DO care if you miss…I mean, they won’t scream and yell at you, but they WILL take it out of your grade.
College can be tough. But you’re able to learn about subjects you WANT to learn about…
Are you going away or commuting? I commute and I can not imagine living in a dorm…way too sheltered and unreal for my tastes…
Hey Guinevere…nice name
I discovered that girls in high school wouldn’t give me the time of day were much friendlier to me when I ran into them in college. I think this was due to the fact that the college was so much bigger (2800 in high school, 30000 in college).
All of a sudden any familiar face is welcome. It’s much harder (and also much harder to achieve) the same popularity in college that you had (or didn’t have) in high school.
Another weird thing to adapt to in college is that you don’t have the same classes everyday and some people even can arrange their schedule so they only have classes 2 or 3 days a week.
You can also eat lunch whenever and wherever you want to.
The average age of students definitely helps. In HS, you’re lucky if it’s 16.5. In college you have people studying there who have kids that old or older. Maturity usually comes with aging.
Plus you have a lot of people who want to be there. Very few people last in college when they’d rather be smoking. Or doing other stuff.
Differences? Oh, the differences I could tell you (I will have over six years of college under my belt by the time I get my final diploma).
Lessee…high school was full of foulmouthed, infantile, petty, endlessly mean-spirited, soulless, mindless, degenerate wastes of flesh whose sole purpose in life is to make life a living hell for anyone and everyone around them. And those were just the counselors. The students by far were worse. Oh, sure, there were a few decent studnets (which a few of my teachers tirelessly pointed out), but they kinda got lost in the subhuman sewage which comprised the majority of my classmates. Oh, did I mention that this was a Catholic school…you know, a supposedly rap-on-the-knuckles-for-taking-the-Lord’s-name-in-vain kind of place? God forbid I’d ever have to even visit the schools that were supposedly “far worse” (another bit of trivia some of the teachers were fond of).
Wait, it gets better: the principal was a corrupt dirtbag who not only didn’t give three rats’ behinds about the well-being of his students, he only enforced the rules HE cared about. You know, dress codes, attendance at every goddam ceremony, talking to total strangers, etc. I ended up getting more time in dentention than every one of my worthless, disgusting, good for nothing classmates put together. Of course, since the time they spent in detention was NONE, that’s hardly a surprise.
Oh yeah…I brought my grievances to any faculty members who would listen, and the general consensus was that I should f*** off. (Did I mention that this was a Catholic school?)
Now college. I found no worthless scumbags. The counselors were all compassionate, dedicated professionals, as opposed to the bums dragged off the street at HS. I was free to pick my own courses. I was not pressured at all.
In all honesty, I don’t know why it was so different. Experience has taught me that age is NEVER a measure of maturity, and it’s ridiculous to expect someone who’s been acting like a self-centerd jerk all the way up until high school graduation to suddenly grow up just because he/she “is an adult now”. The best explanation I can give is that college applicants have to go through certain procedures (such as a TB test) to get in, meaning that they have to follow rules, which itself is an utter impossibility for about, oh, 75% of my graduating class.
There are also greater expectations, and even the oft-maligned community colleges set the bar pretty high. At the CC where I started, failing to get a 2.0 GPA two semesters in a row gets a students suspended for a semester. It’s an extremely effective weeding-out process. Still, I’m amazed that I never met even one absolute jerk in college. They must have tighter standards than I ever realized.
I enjoyed college, though I studied harder than I ever did in HS. It was a whole different experience because no one was forcing me to be there and the average attitude of the students was different because no one walked around with a chip on their shoulders (except maybe the athlete’s) and most people were really friendly.
Plus I enjoyed the parties. 
Some classes required a certain amount of attendance while others did not. One could go to the cafeteria at any time and eat or snack and study, or arrive and leave when one wanted to. Plus, with permission, one could sit in on a class one did not take for further, uncredited education.
The whole thing is that people are there because they want to be – well, most of them. In HS, most kids virtually had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the grounds, which gave them a certain attitude.
Hermes – as others have said, college is the first time you’re treated as an adult. You are no longer the legal responsibility of your parents, so they are not lording over you as they may have done. Your teen years are filled with raging hormones, trying to fit in with your friends, and trying to look as different from your parents as possible (because all of a sudden, they aren’t “cool” when you’re in high school – don’t worry, that’s a natural biological clock going off on schedule), while your 18-22 year timeframe is when you are beginning to finally mold into your own person. You’ll do quite a bit of experimenting in the next four years, but they won’t necessarily be to “fit in” with your clique.
As a former graduate school advisor, let me give you a piece of advice. If you are gonna goof off and not go to school, go ahead and take a leave of absence or just take time out during the summer to travel or something. A lot of young people completely screw up their undergraduate grades (because whoa! All of a sudden nobody is keeping attendance!) and it comes back to haunt you if you want to go to graduate school. Yes, most companies in the Real World don’t give a rat’s patootey about your grades, but graduate schools do. If you are a slacker in your freshman year, be sure to pull your grades up as an upperclassman so your academic transcript has a nice upward curve.
Let me add that while people in the real world may not necessarily care about your college grades, the college itself DOES care. If your grades stink, you’ll flunk out. Nobody watches over you forcing you to study, but if you don’t study sufficiently you’ll be out in the real world a lot sooner than you think.
Your college years should be some of the best years of your life. I was still in college when I went to my 5-year HS reunion and it was funny to hear the guys that graduated in 4 years complain that they should have taken more time to enjoy college.
You will NEVER be able to do the things you can in college again. The degree of freedom and latitude of consequences for you actions will never be at the same level again. In college you have the ability to meet thousands of people, learn hundreds of topics, go on so many road-trips your ass will ache and, and this is the most important part, the college years are the ones where you start to find out who you are.
HS wasn’t/isn’t like this because so much of what happens there is controlled by others. Sure, you can be an outsider and do your own thing and generally have a shitty time because, as much as it sucks, it is true that the “popular” kids control the teen ethos to some extent. This is dramatically, shockingly even, different in college. People in college won’t put up with that “I was cool in HS, so I must be cool here” mentality. You must truly be a good, friendly, gregarious person. Trying to be the HS cool or popular kid in college will get you laughed at (probably behind your back) as an idiot or loser.
Enough of my rant.
Enjoy college. Take a blow-off class every quarter. I was in college for 5 ½ years and I took voice for non-majors, social dance, riflery, T’ai Chi, the Alexander Technique, acro-sport, photography, volleyball and mixology just to name a few (I was an Industrial and Systems Engineering major, btw).
Have a good time.