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16 Reasons Why College is Better than High School, as told by Rory Gilmore

No doubt about it—Gilmore Girls defined many of our high school experiences, and now that it’s on Netflix, many of our peers have finally been introduced to the perfection that is Rory Gilmore. Whether you wanted to be her or not, you have to agree that she navigated Stars Hollow High, Chilton and Yale with style. She’s basically our spirit animal, and she totally agrees that college is way better than high school. Here’s why: 

1. You can eat whatever you want in the dining halls (including cereal for dinner) and your parents don’t have to know a thing about it.


2. The thought of high school being the best four years of your life is completely nauseating, so you totally deny it and are 100 percent okay with that.


3. In college, doing things that make you happy is way better than doing what is expected of you.


4. And this is the place where you can study whatever your heart desires and exactly what you are interested in.


5. College makes you acquire skills you never knew you could.


6.  It’s okay if your life plan isn’t like everyone else’s, and it’s okay even if you don’t have a plan at all.

7. You’re old enough to see right through the free food events your RA puts on. 

8. If you’re anything like Rory, you get excited over the thousands of books held in your college library.

9. If you like coffee, you’re in luck: college is the one place where it is perfectly normal to drink coffee all day, every day…for pleasure, or survival.


10. Your extended family and friends will know that being a broke college student is all too real, so they send you care packages from time to time.


11.  Unlike high school, you are totally comfortable with speaking your mind, especially when it comes to rejecting sleazy boys.


12. You have had your fair share of nights out, but by the time you get a year or two into college, you realize that sometimes a relaxing night in is what you need. 


13. College tests your confidence in more ways than one, and you come out feeling ten times stronger than you did after your high school graduation.


14. In high school, all your energy was put into getting into college. But now, you can focus how to make it in the real world, and college will help you immensely.


15. You realize soon that your life is yours to live, and entering adulthood may be the best thing to happen to you.


16. But you still know that no matter how far away you go, you always have a place you can call home, and your parents will be there to catch you.

Bailee Abell is a third-year English major at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is the Editor-in-Chief of her college newspaper, The Bottom Line. She is an aspiring journalist, an avid drinker of agave lattes, and a lover of adventures (near or far). She can be found in local coffee shops and sunny places, editing articles or watching episodes of Gilmore Girls, rarely without a coffee in hand. Her blog is at BaileeAbell.blogspot.com.