In high school, I always looked up to those above me who had already graduated and had gone onto college. I never heard anyone ever discuss what you should look for in colleges or how actually to begin to make your schedule. Never did I hear that you were supposed to take extremely similar courses in the first two years of college that I just finished taking for the past 4 years of my young teenage life. I had thought that once you enter college you pick what you want to do in the future and simply learn about that for four years. Then you graduate and you're all ready to go in life. You are probably thinking in your head at this point "Wow, I could only imagine what kind of wake up call college was for you." If you are thinking that, you are correct.
Considering myself to being one of the smarter people I knew with a 3.2-3.3 GPA throughout high school, things always came extremely easy to me. Never had I studied for a test, or worked my butt off at home studying for that English Regents that was coming up. Grades simply came easy and so did information that I had only heard once when the teacher gave us PowerPoint presentations. Thinking that college would be the same or as only slightly harder than this was the wrong mindset for me to have now looking back on my high school self.
Entering college I had the idea that I was supposed to immediately pick what I wanted to do for the rest of my life at age 17. I had never been so scared in my whole life to make a destined decision that I was afraid that my future self of five months from then would suddenly want to be the complete opposite of what I was studying. Not knowing about general education classes, I went into my first semester full force with four electives because I thought "That's what you're supposed to do." I finally figured this out in summer 2016.
Looking back on my freshman year of college, I had wish that I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. If only there was some kind of guideline to being freshly out of high school and having not a clue what to do about school. Spreading the knowledge of school and how to handle things all thing college, is a topic that I believe is not discussed enough by between students and even school guidance counselors or advisers. I look back on how I have had to figure out college on my own but disappointed that I felt as though I should have some kind of warning about things to come.
College is a wake up call for me. I think it is for many but maybe we can't quiet admit it. One thing I want to say for anyone to afraid to say it sometimes but truth is that college is hard. No matter what anyone says college is hard and it takes a lot to work at. More than I was obviously ready for, but I like to know every once and awhile that people feel the same way.
Adulting continues to get more difficult.
