Sarah
Well, it’s been a whole month since my last post. It’s weird – it feels so long ago. But, I digress. Today I wanted to talk a bit about my experience in high school versus college. I’m from the United States, so this is based around the American education system, just to let y’all know.
In high school, the most common thing I heard about college was how much better than high school it was. There’s a general consensus that high school is the worst thing that happened ever, and college is the complete opposite. So, naturally, going to university, I expected it to be an incredible experience.
Spoilers: it wasn’t.
Somehow in the summer between senior and freshmen year, I turned into a ball of anxiety and sadness who got stressed over the little things I never had before. Back in high school, taking tests were easy – a walk in the park. Suddenly, I couldn’t study for exams without crying every 5 minutes and stressing out over them to ridiculous degrees.
I missed high school. I missed how easy it was. Back then, I knew where my place was. I knew (or thought I knew) who I was. Now, I still miss those days. My days in high school are submersed in a cloud of happy nostalgia. Seeing as I’m still in the middle of university, I can’t make a sweeping statement about it yet, but I can say the first year of college was the hardest year of my life. Life has gotten easier and I’ve gotten better at dealing with my problems, but I still miss that care-free happiness of high school. I would not be the person that I am today without the experiences I had in high school and college (and I rather like that person), and yet, sometimes university isn’t as great as you think it should be.
I suppose my point is this: don’t always believe everyone. One person’s experience does not mean that you will have the same experience as them. Proceed with caution.
