Letter to a High School Student

Dear High School Student,
Enjoy high school while it lasts because college is a lot different than high school. One specific difference is college work requires new kinds of motivation and self-discipline. Remember yesterday when your mother woke you up three different times just to get ready for school. Yeah, that doesn't happen in college. You will live in a dorm room and will count on your alarm clock or maybe a close roommate to wake you up each morning for class. And lets hope you do not get an eight a.m. There will also be many distractions once you get into college. You will not have your parents breathing down your neck and making sure you attend every class and get every assignment done on time. You will need to find the motivation to get up each morning and attend class. This does not mean you can't go to class in your pajamas. Another difference is college courses are not direct continuations of high school instruction. This means you can get straight A's in all of your high school chem classes, but your first college chem class could be completely different. This is because college professors each have their different ways of teaching and it will be different than your regular high school teachers. Also college professors are much more strict when it comes to assignments and projects and their tests and exams tend to be a lot harder than high school. Another difference I have found is note taking is a lot different in college. Note taking in high school was usually fill in the blank where the teacher gave you each direct answer and did most of the work for you. In college you are lucky to get an outline from the professor. Note taking is done mostly on your own and requires you to learn different note taking skills that work best for you. Another difference I have found is designating time. In high school it was easy to get all of my homework done in study hall or when we had free time at the end of class. In college, professors jam pack the lessons and then give you a lot of homework to do all outside of class. Very rarely do you get to work on things in class. Many people think that college is a time to party and will be a breeze, but really college requires a lot of extra work. After all, you are paying for your own education. Work hard in high school and have fun because college is right around the corner.
Sincerely,
Hannah