What I thought college would be like vs. What it is actually like
All throughout highschool you have a picture of what you think college will be like. Especially after you visit your future college, you have expectations on what going to school there will be like. Throughout highschool you get accustomed to going to every class every day from 7:30am until 3:00pm. You get used to doing the same routine everyday and also typically don’t do as much homework as your teachers “say” you need to do at home. Many people think college is easy and that living by yourself is great and believe the expectations you have for college will come true, when really it is not like that at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I love going to school at the University of Kansas but my college expectations may be different from others because I went to school hours out of state. When I first scheduled classes for college I thought “How great I only have three classes a day!” Which at the time sounds like heaven on earth and even though only going to three one-hour classes a day can be great, there are alot of other hardships that come along with it. Depending on your class, there may not be any attendance points (which normally isn’t the case) or you are allowed a certain amount of skips before you get penalized. It is very easy to skip class just because you aren’t in the mood to go and you don’t have your parents on your back to call you out of school or make you go.
Another expectation that was crushed very quickly was the time of day classes are at. Many freshmen have to take all of the same 8am lecture classes to fulfill their prerequisites. You think that going to this 8am class will be easy because you got up at 6am for the past four years of your life. WRONG. Getting up for an 8am lecture is very difficult because typically everyday you have a different class schedule, therefore you don’t have to go to bed and wake up at a specific time everyday. You also find yourself extremely tired no matter how many hours of sleep you get.
One of the biggest things that changed while attending college, for me at least, was the amount of work you have to do. In highschool, most of the time I would complete my homework in class or only spend an hour or two a night on homework and or studying. You think that your highschool teachers prepared you enough for the amount of school work you will receive in college. Again, WRONG. Depending on the class, you could have homework every other day that is easy and only need to study the night before an exam or test. But it is very likely you will have homework and studying in every class (even if you didn’t attend that class that day) just because you cover a lot more material in college then you did in highschool.
Last but of course not least, living on your own can be fun, yes. But it also has its troubles. For example, you get to follow your own rules, but you have to do your own laundry and that includes your sheets and towels. Another thing, yes you have to clean your own room, bathroom and living room. You can’t trust your parents or parent to clean for you anymore and yes your living space will get dirty.