Differences between high school and college

 

Differences between high school and college

College Requires Greater Independent Learning. Your high school teachers may have been willing to give you lots of test preparation help. They may have provided prepared study guides or even the exact questions they would ask. Although college instructors also want you to be successful, they don't give students as much study help. Sure, most professors will answer questions about course content and things you don't understand, but they will not provide you with a variety of supplementary learning materials and they certainly will not give you test questions. They expect that you know effective and efficient study strategies and if you don't know how to study for their courses, they expect you to learn how. 

College Courses Move at a Faster Pace. If you ask first-year college students about the differences between high school and college, one of their most common responses would be that college courses move much faster than high school classes. What might have taken a year to cover in high school will probably be covered in a semester in college. It is not uncommon for college professors to move through three, four, or more chapters in a week, expecting you to keep up. In addition, topics are generally covered in greater detail. However, college professors may also expect you to fill in many of the details on your own.

College Courses Require You to Think Critically. In your high school classes, perhaps you were required to memorize lots of facts for exams. Perhaps you were discouraged from questioning either your high school textbooks or your high school teacher. But as you proceed through college, you will find yourself in more and more classes where your professor wants you to do more than memorize. You might have to critique an essay on gun control, read and respond to a historian's view of the Vietnamese Conflict, or compare and contrast conflicting scientific theories. All of these tasks require you to think critically.

College Requires You to Study Longer and More Efficiently. You will probably find out pretty quickly that both the amount of time you put into studying and the way you study in college will have to change if you want to continue to earn high grades. Many students say that they really didn't have to study in high school. "Studying" was reading over a study guide or going over class notes for about a half-hour. Few students have ever had to read their texts and many begin college never having taken essay exams. It is important to realize that studying in college requires not only more time, but also a variety of study strategies to have at your disposal.

College Gives You Greater Freedom and Greater Responsibility. In college, no one makes you stay on top of your school work or keeps track of your comings and goings or checks to see that you have done all of your reading and studying before heading out for a night on the town. This freedom comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility. It is your responsibility to prioritize the tasks you have to do against the things you want to do.

HOW TO MAKE THE TRANSITION TO COLLEGE:

1- Take control of your own education: think of yourself as a scholar.

2- Get to know your professors; they are your single greatest resource.

3- Be assertive. Create your own support systems, and seek help when you realize you may need it.

4- Take control of your time. Plan ahead to satisfy academic obligations and make room for everything else.

5- Stretch yourself: enroll in at least one course that really challenges you.

6- Make thoughtful decisions: don't take a course just to satisfy a requirement, and don't drop any course too quickly.

7- Think beyond the moment: set goals for the semester, the year, your college career.