Today I was sitting at a table outside the building of my first class drinking my coffee and I started thinking about how college was almost over for me. I started comparing it to my high school and how I felt when I was done with high school...five years ago. I started to make a list of all the reasons I like college waaaay better than high school. I did not like high school at all. I'll miss college. High school can stay in its grave.
1. Most of this list is based on two things: Freedom and no longer being a minor. So both of those things will be at the top of the list.
2. Flexibility. For three of my four years I only went to school 2 or 3 times a week, instead of 5. Only this last year have I had to go all 5 days because of classes that I absolutely need. And even then, I went 5 days a week, but not for 7 hours a day. This also means that for most of your college career you can avoid 8 a.m. classes if you want.
3. Class choices. I got to choose what I wanted to take (for the most part). Sure there were a requirements to meet, but it was no longer "take U.S. History for the seventh time of your academic career." I took Modern European History and U.S. History since 1868 (cause whoever made it to the Vietnam War in high school? I didn't. I think the farthest was World War 2 junior year).
Even within my major I got to choose out of at least 3 classes to meet requirements. There were always choices! So good! Helps you like what you're learning, and if you don't, you have no one to blame but yourself.
4. Longer breaks and semesters. I love that I didn't have year long classes anymore. Having semesters also meant longer breaks by default. I had a full 3 months for summer. And would have a month off for winter break. None of that 2 weeks crap we had in high school. In college summer started in May. In high school it was in June.
5. No curfew. This was due to my minorness and my parents. Once I was in college I didn't have a curfew, although I didn't take advantage of it all that much.
6. Open campus. This is also due to protecting minors but I hated how you couldn't move around unless you were a senior in high school. You had to stay locked behind gates. In college the campus is 1. Bigger and 2. More open. And both college campuses I was on were beautiful.
7. You can eat in class. I only had a few professors who had a problem with food and drinks, but most did not care. It was nice to be able to not have to take time out of the day to eat, but be able to do it while I took notes.
8. No monotonous homework. The homework made sense and you could see the point of it. I know that high school trains you to be able to do the work yourself. To take notes. To learn how to spell and read comprehensively. But it was nice to not have to practice those things anymore.
9. People do their homework! Not everyone, but a lot of classes, like my English classes, people did the readings so you actually got something out of the discussions. It also helps that there were more people in the class.
10. No one really cares if you're not in class. Some professors still take attendance, but if you really don't want to go to class (or if you were up all night at work and feel like you can't make your 9 a.m. class), there is no one that will force you to go. Since we pay for the education, most professors make a speech about how we only short change ourselves. I go to as many classes as I can because I want to learn, but it's nice knowing you're no longer committing a crime by playing hooky.
11. Not as much drama! Probably has something to do with not having as much extreme amounts of hormones in our bodies anymore. At least in the people I knew, we didn't care who was drinking, who was doing what drugs, who was sleeping with who, etc. We didn't care as much about the gossip, thus not as much drama with people talking about others. Maturity had to have something to do with not as much drama also.
That's all I can think of right now. I know there are more, and perhaps I'll add to my list once I think them...
2 comments:
Wow! How blessed you have been to attend colleges on such beautiful campuses!I'm so glad you have been enjoying the experiences. I am surprised that with all those years of US history your always covered the same years. (No wonder your generation knows so little about the founding of America and the constitution.) We're so proud of your achievements. So,we suggest you just go right on to earn your master's degree! Nana
3. we did not even get to WWII in my world history class. it was a waste and awful. in AP us history though we got all the way through the cold war and vietnam war. that was nice learning more, of course from the american perspective.
4. summer starts for a lot of college people in june still. it just depends if you have quarters or semesters. so i think that is more a happy thing for YOU, but not necessarily college as a whole.
6. we had open campus. sure you "weren't allowed" to leave campus unless you were a junior, but no one ever checked IDs (also a plus of public school i think)
7. i always let my students eat in class, but i do remember being at vms and never being allowed to eat in class. that always made me so sad...
8. i find at ucsd i agree with this. however, csuci seems to love the monotonous homework. sigh...
i quite enjoyed this list! but i do have one thing left to say. you may thing school hours suck, going for 7 hours, 5 days a week. and not getting a full month off for winter break and summer starting in june... BUT, you just wait while that is my career and my JOB gets 2 weeks of for winter and a full summer break. of course this is assuming you get a "normal" job (and until/if you become a stay at home mommy). but yeah, i pretty much love those hours, thank you! ;)
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