High school remotely prepared me for college, the AP classes helping more than the regular ones. My teachers never sugarcoated how college was going to be; emphasizing that fact that college is a lot of work and professors won’t remind you about late assignments or remind you when they’re due. My family and friends already in college tried to prepare me for what college was going to be like, but I either didn’t listen or nothing could have prepared me for this experience except actually experiencing it first-hand.
When I left high school I thought I was prepared for college, especially with all the advice I’d been given, and I wasn’t. I was not prepared for actually moving my stuff into the dorms and having reality set it, or the emotional goodbye with the same parents I thought I would finally be happy to be free from. The first day of college is a lot to take in; emotionally, I was not ready. Not everyone was like that, some kids even partied the first night on campus. However, me being the sensitive teenager I was, I thought about calling my parents and asking them to come back and get me because I wasn’t ready to be an adult. Eventually, I got over it, but it did take me some time.
I was not prepared for the stress that came with college. College, like I said before, is a lot of work, and sometimes it seems like you have so many assignments and presentations you don’t know if you’re going to get them done. You actually have to pay for college, and potentially failing a class, which can be a C, not an F, like in high school, means you wasted thousands of dollars just to have to take the class over again to get into your major. That was a lot of pressure on my emotional, teenage shoulders. Regularly questioning if you went to the right school if you chose the right major, or simply spending your nights worrying what your mid-term grade would be can be too much handle for someone new to college, probably even to upperclassmen still.
I was not prepared for how fast money would go. You always hear about people in college saying how broke they are, but you really don’t get it until you are in their shoes. Some people have their parents paying for their college, or their parents sending them money every month, but not all of us can be that lucky. Money from work goes to books, gas, food or other balances on your student account. Yeah, we were thrown into the adult world unprepared.
Even though there were many things I was unprepared for in college, it was probably the most amazing experience I could have gotten. I was finding out how to do things on my own for once, I met many new people from all over the world, and I was able to start my path towards being a nurse. College is a lot to take in and a lot of work, but something I will always remember.
