It all started the weekend I decided to visit home and I was transported back to simpler times. My parents were cooking dinner, my laundry didn't require quarters, and I was living in a space larger than a jail cell. That is when it occurred to me. These things seemed obsolete when in high school, but to a college student these have become luxuries. This got me thinking about what other seemingly benign activities happened in high school that college students now dream about.
Watching A Full Movie
In college, you're lucky if you have time to catch an hour episode of "Scandal" while writing a paper, let alone dedicate a whole two hours to a movie. In high school watching a movie legitimately meant watching the whole movie with no distractions and still having time afterward to get dinner or hang out at a friend's house. College has taken away free time which has made students fairly good at multitasking so now watching a movie typically entails catching up with friends, doing homework, texting, scrolling social media, and eating. So when going home for a break or even just a weekend, it can seem odd when your parents ask to watch a movie. And even though you do have time to watch it, you feel that its necessary to do something productive while watching the movie.
Going Out to Dinner
In high school, it made you feel like an adult to plan outings with your friends. You probably even planned on getting dressed up just for fun to act like adults. Now in college the prospect of going out to a nice dinner is reserved for friends' birthdays, and even that's stretching your ramen budget. It's always a luxury when you're home and you're parents ask where you would like to eat for dinner because you know that everything on the menu is fair game.
Meeting Up With Friends
In high school you most likely had half of your classes with your best friends and knew most of the other people in your classes from being at a smaller school. In college you're at a campus of 30,000-plus people and most likely do not have the same major as all your friends. This means that catching up to hang out with friends requires planning and scheduling and by that time you just decide to study together. Let alone meeting up with friends at your campus, meeting with friends that go to other colleges is nearly impossible. You may be able to catch up with them during breaks but in those cases their parents want to lock them in the house to spend their own time with them.
Free Weekends
Typical weekends in high school involved sleeping in, watching TV, grabbing food, hanging out with friends, and then repeating the next day. In college work in never-ending, so if you chose to do these other glorious things the chances are is that you're getting very far behind in work. That is why breaks seem so long in college because even though you don't have work your mind is conditioned to be on high stress and constantly functioning. Needless to say, college has stripped away students' ability to relax.
Planning Outfits
Even though you had to wake up fairly early to get ready for school in high school, there was typically enough time to plan out the perfect outfit for the day. Now in college you are walking to class which means outfits need to be functional over stylish. This means many students are wearing their pajamas, tennis shoes, and a winter coat to class. The one good thing is that college takes away your care for your appearance so it doesn't really matter.
Working Out
In high school you had hours after school to honestly do whatever you choose, so if you were one of the healthier students you probably would work out for hours every day. In college time is not so free and homework drains you to the point that by the time you even walk to the gym you're tired. Even trying to do homework at the gym becomes a problem, because you can't walk and read unless you want premature vertigo.
Driving (or transportation that isn't your feet)
This has to be the largest adjustment in college because in high school you most likely drove or were driven to class everyday. Now in college the only real transportation is by walking to class or biking which is the reason many students struggle to attend classes. Its not the laziness per se that has students annoyed by walking. Its the fact that for at least we've spent two years driving ourselves to class, to get food, and to see friends. So now that walking is the only real option its hard to find the motivation to go do anything which causes students to become friends with people in their general spaces. Thanks dorms.
Even though college has taken away many freedoms we didn't appreciate in high school, there are still many aspects of college that make it the most wonderful years of our lives. And I'm sure given the chance no one would chose to go back to high school over college so appreciate the things you have now (especially seeing your parents and family members).
Happy Spring Break, everyone!
