Essay on the Difference Between My College Experience and High School Experience

Learning is a continuous process. Often, one encounters different experiences at every stage of learning. This is because every level of learning right from preschool, junior school levels, high school levels and more advanced levels like colleges come with different environments and people. High school life is normally a precursor to life to full adulthood life in college (Smith, & Zhang, 2009). Well, my college experience has been quite different from my high school experience.

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In college, I barely know my classmates. I only have a few friends in my class and a very small circle of friends outside of class. This is unlike high school where almost all my classmates were my friends, and I knew almost everybody in school. Its hard to make friends in college. People are always busy attending lectures, and once the class is done, everyone goes to take care of other businesses on their own. No wonder getting to know each other is quite difficult. In high school, though, we socialized in several places including participating in games and sports together, having joint school debates, taking meals together and even going on regular interschool music competitions. This rarely happens in college.

In college, I own my time. I decide on how I can spend every minute. This is completely different from the experience back in high school. How I spent time was dictated by the school and every second never belonged to me. In college, I enjoy using my time the way I want. I also run according to my schedule in college. There is a timetable for lectures, but the final say on whether I should attend the lectures belongs to me. In high school, I had to stick to by the school timetable at all times; I thus enjoy being in campus more because I have more control over my time and make my schedule.

I lived with my parents in high school. In college, I live with my friends. The experience with living with my parents is completely different from the experience of living with my friends. For example, ate meals cooked at home every evening, but in college, we rarely cook meals since washing dishes is hectic. I miss my parents advises and company every day in college. I miss the breakfast I used to take every morning at home. In college, nobody cares whether you have taken dinner or not, or whether you went to lectures on an empty stomach or not. This is one of the reasons why I love my high school experience.

I was a smart and diligent student while in high school. I always finished all my assignments in time and read for my exams right from the first day of school. In college, finishing my assignments is nearly impossible. I read hard two weeks to the start of exams on campus. Perhaps this explains why I hate exams time is always the most uncomfortable period of every semester in college. I used to anticipate for exams in high school. These days I can only manage to gather the courage to walk into the exam room in college.

Back in high school, I had little decisions to make on my own, and most of them had little impact on my life. In college, though, with increased freedom, I make all my decisions daily. Often, these decisions have far reaching consequences on my life. I am on my own free. Nobody is watching over me. My decision-making skills have come into use daily in college. I am also more convinced that I am responsible for my future. I have had a very exciting experience with decision making in college. In high school, my decisions were made by my teachers and my parents. I am also more determined to make my life better in college since I have suddenly realized that I have myself to blame in life; unlike in high school where I always had excuses for my mistakes.

My experience with lectures in college is totally different than that with teachers in high school. For example, I used to consult with teachers any time even on personal issues. We always had a teacher in the office ready to give sound advises and directions (Bloom, H. S., Thompson, S. L., & Unterman, 2010). However, on campus, this is not the case. I do not have any personal relationship with any lecturer. They only seem to play the role of teachers but not mentors. Most of them rarely talk about reality in life. They only stick to what they are supposed to teach. In high school also, my teachers used to refer to books often written by other people (DiMartino & Clark, 2008). I used to enjoy this since it made learning easier. However, in college, most of my lectures only refer to the books they have written themselves. This elevates them since I always feel I dont know anything when they take quotations from their books thus making learning look a little bit tricky.

My campus study experience is more enjoyable than high school study. I like what I study unlike in high school where I was forced to study things I was not interested . I, therefore, crammed a lot of information that I was not interested about in high school just for the sake of exams. I can barely recall most of the things I learned especially those I was not interested in. In college, though, I enjoy studying what I like and more so because the experience is more emphasized on than just bookish knowledge.

One of the most prominent experiences I had in high school is that of rumors which used to spread very quickly in school. Everything for example who was dating who, how a party went wrong over the weekend and also other topics such as a new teacher in the school were talked about in small circles and groups. However, this does not happen in college at all. It seems everybody minds their own business in college. There is very little room for rumors, and this is one of those reasons I miss high school. All in all, I can say my experience in college is fun in all aspects except a few. And is totally different from my high school experience.

References

DiMartino, J., & Clarke, J. H. (2008). Personalizing the high school experience for each student. ASCD.

Bloom, H. S., Thompson, S. L., & Unterman, R. (2010). Transforming the high school experience. How New York City small schools are boosting students achievement and graduation rates. MDRC.

Smith, W. L., & Zhang, P. (2009). Students' perceptions and experiences with key factors during the transition from high school to college. College Student Journal, 43(2), 643-658.