The transition between college and high school was so evident that it's different in almost every area. In college, there are three factors that play a role to each college student individually: friends, deadlines, and textbooks, which every college student gets very acquainted with. I've realized that they become demanding in college and it's not at all similar to how high school was.

1. You realize how forced friends were.

When you're in high school, you're surrounded by the same people all day almost every day for 10 months. You learn the names of most of your classmates and even if you never went to that class, teachers still knew who you were. In high school, these friends are the friends who you will get very acquainted with because, for the next couple of years, you will be spending every single class together. High school becomes something that you need to be familiarized with. In high school, your friends' schedules are your schedule and that makes it a whole lot easier to keep them.

When you get to college, you realize how much that changes. In college, you're lucky if you even know the names of five students in your class. It's even better if those classmates become your friends who you interact with outside of class. We usually just need them for the days when we're absent or if there's an assignment that we missed. It's almost as if every other student doesn't exist and it isn't abnormal to finish a semester and not know who anyone is. Let's face it, what's there really to talk about? In college, you have to find those friends who connect well with you because that's what makes them easier to keep.

2. Life happens fast.

In high school, there is so much time. There is enough time to complete everything within four years and when you get to the final year, you almost don't know what to do with yourself. Classes are five days per week and you take for granted the teachers who are pushing you and trying to get you to pass, mostly to get you out of their class, but pass nevertheless. It's OK if you don't turn in a few homework assignments or fail a test because there are several of them. It's also OK to take sick days and not really care how it will affect you later because if you weigh it out, it's not that much.

College, is a whole new ball game. Every homework assignment and test counts and attendance is essential for your grade unless failing is an option. Everything is about effort. You have to make the effort to get up on time for class, you have to make an effort to wake up from your between-class naps, and you have to make an effort to meet deadlines and go to office hours. At first, it's easy. It starts off slow and everything is OK. Then there are tests that magically happen all around the same time, so you go crazy while studying. It's all so fast that you have to ask yourself, "Did we even learn that much to even get tested on it?" From this moment on, every college student knows whether the rest of the course is going to be a breeze or a struggle. If it's a breeze, then you'll live a fast-paced journey to Successville. If it's a struggle, good luck! You're in for the longest sleepless nights that you have ever spent trying to pass a class.

3. Textbooks are expensive.

The one thing that I definitely miss was having the ability to doodle in a textbook that was free and owned by the school. You were able to take textbooks from school and it wouldn't matter if you used it or not. Accidentally ripping a page because you turned it a tad bit too hard seemed insignificant.

In college, textbooks are equivalent to money. You fully understand what it is to be a college student if you start resenting a teacher for making you spend a good amount of money on a book that you don't even know the name to because you don't use it. Textbooks can be a bittersweet thing because you spend so much money that it motivates you to utilize it. I wouldn't mind it, but I wish that motivation didn't have to be so expensive.