College vs. High School Essay

High-quality education is a significant part of everyday life. To accomplish that education, most people went through a transition from high school to college, two major milestones in most people’s lives. There are many differences between these two institutions. Some students may adapt and transit from the life of high school to the life of college without much difficulty, while others may take years to grasp the differences and cope with it. High school and colleges are both made to educate, but with differences in terms of classes, responsibility, and social life. One of the main differences between college and high school is the classes in general. In high school students attend class for six hours every day for five days. Information is provided mostly through classroom discussion and reading that is assigned. Assignments in high school are usually broken down into a step-by-step task. Quizzes are usually given on a weekly basis, and tests come up at the end of every chapter. College, on the other hand, consists of twelve to eighteen hour school weeks and the classes are split in to semesters. There is more writing with longer papers and essays, a lot of out-of-class research that is usually done in the library on the students’ own time, and few to no assignments given in class. Compared to high school, there are few quizzes in college and only about one test a month that covers much more material. The level of responsibility is a big difference between high school and college. In high school teachers monitor the students’ progress and are likely to offer clarification when to them when it is needed. They also take attendance every day, check students’ work constantly, and briefly lecture while highlighting the main points. In college professors lecture and expect the students to acquire knowledge and facts from outside reading and library research. The students must also monitor their own progress and ask for clarification if needed. Out of the classroom responsibility is also very distinguishable. Some students come from a home where their parents do a lot of things for them such as laundry, cooking, and making sure they make it to school. In college it is all up to the students to do all of these tasks themselves. The social life between high school and college students has a noticeable difference. Parents can control or have a big say in what their kid is doing in and out of school. They can make their kids be involved in different activities such as sports, clubs, and plays. They can also have a big influence on who their children hang out with, and can restrict the hours in which they do hang out with those friends. This can be a good and bad thing. When parents don’t let their kids learn from their own mistakes they may repeat them later on in life when their parents aren’t there to help them back up. College is a completely different story. It all becomes the kids choice, what they want to be involved in, who they what to hang out with, and when they want to hangout. Making these choices can also be very stressful for students resulting in bad judgment. Although there are many differences between high school and college there are also some similarities. Grades are very important in both high school and college because they reflect the student’s future whether it’s for the career they are pursuing or the college they would like to get accepted to. In high school and college the main objective is to learn and become more knowledgeable to help prepare students for the big world ahead of them. The courses taken in college are very similar to those in high school, just more advanced. They have a similar structure in the way they teach. They both have teachers, textbooks, tests, some sort of homework, and of course the dreaded final exams. Throughout the entire course the teachers are preparing the students for the final exam so they can move on to a more advanced class. A lot of the basic rules in high school and college tend to be the same. Athletics plays a big role in both high school and college. Schools depend on sporting events to bring in additional money. Every step of education from kindergarten to college has the same goal in mind, to teach their students how to play a productive role in society. Learning how to read and write in elementary school, and improving it in middle and high school makes it possible for college student to write fluent essays, and read and understand chemistry and literature books. If the students are able to understand it all, pass the classes, and earn a degree, they can now get a job and become a productive member of society. Even though high school and college may have many differences, they are very closely connected and are major milestones in most people’s lives.