Cleaning My Life

Reminder: you’ve got this.

https://openstaxcollege.org

your high school teachers are LIARS.

Most college professors accept late assignments.

Some of them are so chill that you can ditch most of class so long as you can handle the final. 

It’s all about playing it by ear.

YOU DON’T ASK TO GO TO THE BATHROOM PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF THE EMBARRASSMENT. 

It is NOT harder than high school. You’re more or less ready for it if you do ok in high school, ok?

Seriously. I got A’s in AP classes yet was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to handle college.

Surprise surprise?

AP classes are harder than college classes. 

No joke. 

College professors are a lot more liberal on what counts as a “right” answer. 

Plus they give you points for caring. 

Some classes give you points just for showing up. 

There’s an atmosphere of controlled panic, and you are not the only one. 

You can pretty much go up to anyone and say god life is a nightmare and finals are gonna kick my ass, and they’ll go saaaaame, regardless of how genius they’re supposed to be. 

Seriously. 

College student here.

High school teachers are the WORST of liars.

They’ll tell you college is a “whole nother level” but that’s such horse shit. 

High school is a standardized sheep counting facility. 

Your professors are also MUCH better at offering help when asked. Seriously, of you’re not understanding something don’t hesitate to visit them during their office hours. It’s why they HAVE office hours.

You’re not even going to have the same hours of hw as hs. If a class is 4 credits… you will have about 4hours of hw per WEEK. And if the class is harder for you maybe 4 hours of extra studying per week. Instead of 5 hours of hw per night…like hs. So… a full load is about 12-14 credits. If you do hw only 6 days a week that’s only about 2 hrs a day.

College is wonderful compared to HS. I wish I would have just graduated a year or two early and taken college classes from home. Seriously.

Now, in college, I have some large gaps during the day and get to organize my schedule enough to accommodate my stuff–and I get Fridays off, too! (And no more math, too!) I also find that professors often do not assign busy work and have reasonable expectations on what you can accomplish. Heck, I’ve had professors who’ve pushed back exams and papers because they didn’t think they could have time to grade them all and/or prepare us in time. That hardly ever happened in high school. Hell, you can ask for an extension. Some professors won’t give it to you, but a lot are very understanding about Things Coming Up if you inform them ahead of time. 

And if you’re late? Professors don’t lock you out. It’s up to you if you want/can go (but professors do count you tardy and expect you to make up the work). They want you to learn. That’s why they have office hours! (and there’s on-campus tutoring and study groups) Some professors can be jerks about answering questions, but those are the bad eggs. I once got to talk to my professor for two hours about my novel-in-progress, and I actually asked him if it was okay for me to go because he got so caught up about the plotlines and characters, whereas most teachers I knew in high school would have kicked you out after ten minutes.