The high school years of every student's life are vital in preparing them for college. Study skills, learning skills, working skills, classes taken, lessons learned, and healthy life habits are vital in shaping the minds of teenagers entering high school to leave to go to college as adults. But how much are future college students really prepared for once they receive their diploma and take their first steps into the real world?
Throughout high school, just like every school year I passed, learning came naturally to me. I was able to go through the years of my education with barely needing to study. I really only have ever struggled in one subject: math. As a result, I never needed to improve or even develop study skills much at all. Since I could read over the material only minutes before a test and pass it with at least a B, there was no need for me to really study long-term at all.
This all changed for me in college. I treated the classes I took the same way I treated my high school classes since it was the only way I knew how, doing homework the day that it was due, writing papers the night before, and glancing over test material the night before the test and then cramming until the professor entered the class room. When I received my first grades and realized they were definitely not where I wanted them to be, I knew my old high school habits were not going to be enough.
I was forced to teach myself better study habits, taking in a bit of information every night and always repeating what I already knew so that by the time test day came around I could recite the information without needing help. Though my bad study habits did not cause a downfall in my GPA, I felt that if I had just learned how to study properly in high school, studying in college would not have been so hard. Good study skills are often the most important and most difficult part of college.
Another bad habit of mine throughout high school was barely taking notes. Since I could generally pick up material pretty well in classes like history, English, and science I had no need to take notes and could simply refer to worksheets. However, in college I found notes to be very valuable after all. Within the first few weeks of my history and astronomy classes of college, I took very few notes. Usually I wrote down vocabulary and information the professors stated would be on the test or that we needed to be sure that we knew.
All other information seemed irrelevant until mid-terms came around and study guides were given out. While studying with friends, I realized that I only had a vague idea of a good bit of the information. However, it was indeed in their notes. Good note-taking habits developed in high school would have helped me at the beginning of college much more than I originally thought, and certainly would have prevented a lot of headache trying to get information needed at test time.
However, there were many things in high school that helped me a great deal in college and that is simply the classes I had taken. For the most part, my classes were advanced. The information was geared more towards students wishing to go to college. Not only that, but I had the opportunity to take Advanced Placement classes and extracurricular classes as well.
In my senior and junior years of high school, I took the Vietnam Era and World War II classes offered at Newnan High School. These classes not only gave me an opportunity to meet people and experience things few ever get to do, but the information from the course I learned had me breezing through my college history class and even teaching the professor something they were unaware of every now and then.
Another class that proved to probably be the most valuable class I have ever taken was the AP British Literature class I took in my senior year of high school. Along with learning how to correctly write and format an essay, I learned how to write a resume, formal letter, compose a college portfolio, and test taking skills that would allow me to take and pass a long multiple choice test. Without this class, I would have been clueless about how to proceed to college and the real world.
High school also taught me valuable social interaction that I will carry on to college. The social aspect of college is a little different than the social high school. Since students do not spend all four years of school almost right up under each other and in multiple classes together, students see less of each other and may not interact with each other at all. However, some of the most lasting friendships can be made in college just like high school whether it be in the classroom or outside of it. Social interactions I learned in high school are a bit different in college but also somewhat the same.
Though cliques that are often found in high school are still present, they are not as closed as they are in high school and most students are willing to help each other out academically. I have always been very outgoing and a "social butterfly" throughout my life, but I have found that because of the fresh start college offers, even the shyest people can come out of their shells. Besides that, a clean start is always good for everyone.
Most high school students leave for college right after graduation. Some are more prepared than others. However, overall the high school years do a very good job of preparing students for the years to come, both academically and socially. Though no amount of preparation may be enough, there is no need to fret. College is a worth-while experience. All you have to do is dive in and start swimming.
