You'll realize pretty quickly that college and high school are extremely dissimilar. They are different in numerous ways, but one of the most prominent can be in classes and studying. I'm learning that college has a lot less structure and enforcement than my high school did.
My boarding school required us to sit in study hall from 7:30 to 9:30 PM, with only one five minute break in between. I came from a school with so much structure, so transitioning to having so much freedom and freetime in college is strange. I remember the first week of school I called my mom because I felt like I wasn't doing enough.
I feel like the switch to freedom is so sudden that it can be really hard to comprehend at times. Everything is on the syllabus, even the due dates, and no one is here to remind you to hand things in; we're big kids now. We don't even have to ask to go to the bathroom anymore!
If I just got up to go to the bathroom in high school, everyone would look at me like I commited a murder. Besides adjusting to the new bathroom rules, I definitely have had to learn how to have better study habits. Study habits and procrastination seem to be the hardest to deal with in college for me.
To try and remedy my study habit troubles, I have created study groups, I do the readings, add notes, annotate, color code, and highlight most of my work. These are all good habits, but the truly hard part is trying to make them last. Anything you do, or work on, can be completely destroyed by procrastination.
Procrastination can come in many forms; some people under pressure work harder and more diligently, while others get the assignment done quickly and they BS what they are saying. Procrastination can make even the easiest things seem hard and unbearable. Especially when all your classes only meet biweekly and for different periods of time.
As a communications major, my classes and what I have to study for are diverse compared to some of my other friends' classes. Having friends who have majors in fields like Business, English, and Occupational Therapy, I know what I have to study for is not as rigorous as something like something like memorizing Chemistry terms. It makes me really happy to be a Park kid, because I get to worry about analyzing films and taking pictures instead of the human anatomy or anything that has to do with math.
Megan and Audrey are two friends that I have who are "Park" Majors like me (no one in Park calls the school of the communications, "The School of Communications"; instead we call it Park because the name is so long).The three of us have interesting homework, for example, I have helped Audrey with her Sports Media newspaper article, I've helped Megan with a Script for class, and every now and then everyone models for me for my photo project.
Change from high school to college is said to be intimidating, but I find it quite fun. I enjoy taking classes specifically for what I want to do in life, and having a community of people who help me succeed. You just need time to adjust to your new surrounding and embrace the differences, and then the studying and hard work will come naturally.
Parkies!!author's photo
