" High school will be the best four years of your life, don't let them pass you by!"
I began my freshman year with this perspective, thinking that after settling down from moving state to state I would finally get my chance to gain a lot of friends and experience exciting new adventures. But as it turns out, high school was NOT the best four years of my life. In fact, high school contained some of my most exasperating experiences. Although it taught me a lot, being at college has been so much more rewarding for me both mentally, physically, and emotionally.
High school was always a popularity contest - or at least it always felt like it was. Who knows who, what is everyone wearing, what sport do you play? Everything that should have been completely irrelevant to the decision making of your friend group suddenly became the most important things. Your status determined what you would get out of your experience. Even though once you graduated you began to realize that the only reason you associated with many of your classmates was because you saw them five days a week. But in college, they don't care if you're the star player of the basketball team or if you're the best-dressed person in the school. Popularity is irrelevant, and if you don't complete your work and put in the effort it takes to succeed then you will fail: point blank. College is the experience that you make it - what you give is what you get, and friendship values change more drastically than you would think.
Dress codes were also a pain in the butt. They were highly exaggerated a good portion of the time. No leggings, yoga pants, tank tops, or skirts/dresses that go above your knees were allowed. You were not allowed to wear piercings or dye your hair "unnatural colors." And ironically enough, these rules were put into place to ensure that we would be ready for college and the work force! However, college doesn't base your maturity or intelligence on whether you choose to wear shorts and a tank top to class, or show up with purple hair and a nose ring. They have much more trust (and implied expectations) that you will be prepared to dress properly when it is deemed necessary in the work field.
And then there's everyone's favorite thing about high school: learning a bunch of pointless things that will never have any application to real life! Not once did we take the time to learn about balancing a check book, buying a house, budgeting, or dealing with credit cards - but heaven forbid we forget to learn about the Pythagorean Theorem (which by the way I have yet to use once). In college you decide who you want to be and what you want to accomplish. The class schedule follows your major so that you're always learning about things that you enjoy instead of learning things that simply just don't interest you.
For some people, high school probably was one of the best times of their lives. For me, one semester of college has already proved to be better than four years of high school. I have grown so much as a person and not only began to discover myself, but also become comfortably involved in things outside of class that I would have never dreamed of trying while in high school. So this is to the people who don't think high school is/was the greatest time of your life - say it without regret. The best years are yet to come.
