When I was in high school, I was that typical student who would strive for all A's and try as hard as I could to excel in everything that I did. According to The Future Of Children Organization, the primary purpose for high schools is to prepare students for college. I personally feel as though I was completely unprepared for almost everything when I came to college.
After being in college for a few semesters, I realized that your typical college movies that are produced on TV didn't showcase any of the struggles that were soon to come in college. Studying in high school was almost nonexistent except for those few classes that required a few extra hours of work, which was definitely not often. Most college nights are spent staying up late, and sometimes pulling all-nighters to study for tests that you didn't previously have enough time to study for throughout the week because of other demanding class assignments. In high school, I was in bed by 10 every night during the week and actually had time to relax, so these long nights of cramming my brain with tons of information hit me pretty hard.
In high school, I took several AP classes that were supposed to be harder than normal classes and help you get a feel of what college is like. They did their job...to a certain extent. When I came to college and was pounded with Human Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Organic Chemistry tests all in the same week, I realized that although I thought these AP tests were challenging at the time, they were miniscule in difficulty compared to any of my college core classes along with the stress that follows
In high school, it wasn't difficult to arrive at each class in a timely manner or get a good seat in class because classes were literally down the hallway. That all changed when I got to college. I've had professors who have went over time with their lectures which left me with scrambling to my next class all the way across campus, and I go to a relatively small college. I would hate to see how often students at huge colleges are late if they have to ride busses from class to class because the campus is too large to walk the distance.
Teachers are nice individuals who try to help you out in class by describing in detail everything you need to know or repeatedly state when to turn something in. In college, the professors are indifferent to getting to know you like high school teachers do. They also may put homework up online without even telling you it's there and if you miss the due date, it's your own fault and they have no sympathy. Oh, the responsibilities of being a college student.
To end this rant of mine, I would like to say that, although my high school didn't prepare me enough for college, it did prepare me some, and for that I will be forever thankful for all of my wonderful teachers.
