If college wasn't different than high school, I kind of wonder if many people would really go. Many things will be different, from the environment you'll be in, to the degree of education you'll receive. Whenever I think back to high school and remember people telling me that high school would be the best four years of my life, I chuckle a little bit. For me, they definitely weren't the best four years of my life, if even four good years. If there are any four consecutive years of your life that will be both the best and worst years of your life, college will be those years.

1. There will, of course, be a lot of differences between college and high school. For one, assuming you live on campus and don't commute, you won't live with your parents and you'll have to take care of yourself and be responsible for your actions. For some college students, this means you can sleep whenever you want and for others this means you don't ever have to sleep. This can become problematic because if you sleep all the time, then you might miss a lot of your classes and if you don't ever sleep, you will eventually crash and it will not be good.

2. Even though you could take 5 AP level classes in high school, that might not be the case in college. Actually, it isn't the case for most people. College is much harder than high school, mostly because of the freedom you have. But, having freedom means you have to take responsibility for your education, so learn your limits.

3. In high school, a lot of people get away with not ever talking to their teachers. That won't do you any good in college. In fact, it'll do you a lot of good to really get to know your college professors. If you start struggling late in the semester and really need help and you don't know the professor for the class, it'll be difficult for them to help you. If you don't know your professor and something goes wrong and you have to miss class, it will likely be difficult for them to believe what you tell them.

4. In college, a lot of the time, you'll end up eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner with your professors. I go to a small University and there isn't a week that goes by that I haven't sat with a professor, staff member, or even the President of the University for at least two meals.

5. Growing up, I had a room to myself, but I shared a bathroom with my younger brother. Sharing a super small room with another girl for a year was a huge shocker for me. But I like to believe that sharing a bathroom with a messy boy made sharing a bathroom with approximately 8 girls a breeze.