Once you graduate high school and your senior year comes to an end, there is a feeling that comes over you. You walk a little taller, your grin is a bit bigger, you feel on top of the world. As my freshman year in college met summer, I made comments like, "they are so young" about high school seniors becoming college freshmen. Other college students that were older would answer, "That was you barely a year ago." For some reason, they just seem so much younger. Here's why.

As a graduating high school senior, you've finished your days walking the halls of the same school you've been at for four years. You tower over the baby freshmen and you feel like the world is yours. Summer comes and you're too old to hang out with the sophomores and really the juniors, too. You think you are ready to be around the college kids. The homework was for babies and the teachers didn't respect you. Like, hurry up, August! Those freshmen finishing their first year in college will still relate to you, right? Well, not exactly. As the freshmen finish their first year, a whole new world has opened up to them. You seniors are still stuck in the four year purgatory we call high school. The freshman know now what real freedom is. What makes these two ages so different? One word: experience.

The freshmen have now been exposed to college life and all that it brings. The freedom, the first college exam, the parties. High school couldn't begin to prepare you for what college brings. There are so many things that a freshman in college now understands that a graduated high school senior couldn't begin to imagine, but don't worry, you'll get there. Learning how to manage your time, knowing where your priorities lie and getting on professors' good side are tasks freshmen now have mastered. In your first year of college, these things mature you real quick and the immature are left behind.

Another thing that separates the high school seniors and the college freshmen is how prepared they will be for the following year. Now, the soon-to-be sophomores know exactly what to bring and what to leave at home, which professors to take and which ones to avoid, what time the cafeteria closes and so much more. Being prepared comes with being experienced, something that the high school seniors will lack until their first year is over.

The world you seniors live in now is incomparable to the world you are preparing to enter. Graduating seniors and college freshmen are entirely different. With experience comes maturity and with maturity comes age. So remember this upperclassmen, we aren't just a year apart. We are worlds apart.