College vs. High School

            College so far is going quite well and believe it or not it has been quite fun. College is really different than high school. Compared to high school, I have a lot more time outside of class as I spend less time in class. I’ve had to learn to manage this extra time. In high school it seems like my parents and teachers helped structure my time, telling me what I should do on assignments and such. This isn’t the case anymore; I’ve had to learn to manage my time. Unlike high school, Professors assign papers that will be due like 3 weeks later and not mention the paper again until its time to collect it. This has forced me to keep on task with my assignments. I now have to plan when I will do various parts of the assignment so that I am not trying to write a 10 page paper the night before it is due.

            The professors here at Xavier are of way higher quality than the teachers I dealt with in high school. In high school it seems like a lot of the teachers hated their jobs and were “counting down the days till their retirement.” Teachers here seem to be passionate about and love the subjects that they teach. Not only do they seem to love teaching, they have work experience in their subject and actually know what they are talking about. The professors here don’t just read straight from a textbook like most of my high school teachers did.

            I haven’t failed any assignments or tests yet and have done decent grade-wise on every subject. All of my mid-term grades where either B+’s or B’s. I’m not satisfied with these grades, but I’m not 100% unhappy with myself either. Especially considering that most of my friends and people in my dorm received lower grades, many of which also have more lenient/easier professors. In high school it was really easy to get A’s, all you had to do is put forth effort and memorize facts and terms. Here at Xavier, It seems like you can work your butt off, know all the facts and terms on the test/exam really well, and still end up with a B. To get an A most of my Professors expect you to make connections, outside of the terms and facts mentioned in class and found in the textbook.

            College up to now has been a learning experience. I have had to learn to manage my time and stay on task. The biggest thing for me so far has been learning to stay “unstressed.” Every week I receive tons of work from my classes. I look at this work and think to myself “theirs no way I am going to be able to do this with the time I have”, and begin to get really stressed out while I sit there wondering how I am going to manage to do all of it. In reality, I have more than enough time to finish all of the work. By sitting there and stressing out I am wasting tons of time, time in which I could have done a considerable amount of the work. Every week I manage to get all my work done. Overtime this has begun to make me realize more and more that I have a lot more time than I first thought. A lot of this “stressing” has to do with the fact that I am still used to my high school days, where I really didn’t have a lot of time outside of school. I have started to realize that I have a lot of time, making it possible to get all of the assignments completed. Continuing in to the second half of the semester, I need to continue to stay on task and start planning on my day better than I am currently doing. I believe that by planning my day better I will more so realize that I have a lot of time to complete everything. By realizing that it’s possible to finish everything I feel that I can eliminate most of this “stress” that I have been dealing with.