The Realities of College Life

As I graduated high school, I thought college would just be yet another four years of high school, and I was wrong. College opens many new doors in a young man or woman’s life. There are new responsibilities and pressures that you will have to deal with, and with more freedom these responsibilities and pressures can be difficult to handle. College has changed a great deal over the years and these changes, such as more freedoms, make college a much more challenging experience. You need to start preparing for college now by making yourself more responsible and having more self-control. Although you think college is merely partying with easy classes on the side, I have experienced pressures and work loads that make the experience challenging and time consuming.

The college experience has changed since our parents’ time. My father insists: “When I was in school, there was no real college experience. I went to the cheapest school because I had to pay for it. No partying, just studying” (1). During our parents’ time, paying for school was the biggest pressure. My father had to work two jobs all throughout his college career just to pay for his schooling. The College Student Journal declares that the biggest pressures of today are change in sleeping habits, vacations/breaks, change in eating habits, new responsibilities, and increased class workload (3). Another large difference between colleges now and then is that as time goes by we get more and more concerned about how well ou...