Why is transitioning from high school to college so hard for so many people? Is it all about being stressful and having no life. No, is the answer if we can understand how to transition and adjust to college life. After graduating from high school, reality hits, and we realize that sooner or later, we’re in college. Transitioning to college is definitely not picture perfect. Not everything is picture perfect. Let’s not expect our college year to be just like ones that are shown through movies. We need to learn how to adjust to college and the life of being a college student. Adjusting to college is just like adjusting to high school in your freshman year. In this essay, I will inform you about the 3 basic pillars for transitioning to college and being successful at it. The 3 basic pillars are Social/Personal, Academic, and Financial.
One of the three basic pillars that students go through when transitioning to college is their social and personal life. We use communication to manage our way into our daily lives. Being social is important for us to communicate with our colleagues, friends, and possibly strangers we meet on a daily basis. There are positive and negative outcomes of being social through your college years. Friendship is the strongest bond any people can share. We will have friends that will stick with us for the long term, but we also need to know and understand that not everyone will be there for the long term. We will have friends that will do more harm than good.
Friends come and go. Making friends in college can be as easy as from having classes with someone to joining extracurricular. That right there is one way out of thousands we can develop a friendship with someone.
With our personal health, college can be terrifying. If a person, for example, has health issues, such as mental health etc., and going to college makes the situation worse, than they should let people know. From Care For Your Mind, Kay stated that “It is important to foster a dialogue about mental health that is inclusive and open for active participation by everyone. Speak up and let people know that mental health matters to you.” (So Now What…, Kay). College campus usually have places where people can seek for their health issues. Another subject that can trigger our personal health is about being homesick. One day we’re at our campus doing perfectly fine and we seem to be having fun. Then all of a sudden a weird sensation creeps up on us. We feel as if something is missing. We come to realization that, potentially, we are homesick. Usually freshmans, to some, are the ones suffering to this more especially since this is their first year in college and they have not gotten used to the routine. But it is not only the freshmen that can get this feeling. It can happen to anyone at any moment. One solution that can resolve this situation is to go to a college campus near where our parents live. But what if we find a College out of state? If we have found a better college out of state, solutions such as writing to your parents back and forth and calling them can resolve the situation.
With our social and personal health, Time management is going to be our friend. An article written from Jess Shatkin, they have stated that “The stress levels of college students have been on a constant rise. A 2009 study of 40 randomly chosen four-year colleges and universities found that 85% of the 2,240 undergraduates interviewed experience stress on a daily basis (up from 80% in 2008).” (Transition to…, Shatkin). A possible result of the stress that college students are having are coming from not managing their time completely. In high school “our time was structured by others” while in college “we manage our own time” (How is College…, UMass). Now in college is the best time for us “to learn how to learn on our own” stated by a student that Mr. Appleby taught (How do college…, Appleby).
From the NC State University website, they stated that “Students must choose when and how to study, socialize with new acquaintances, become involved in activities, budget money, exercise, and make time to eat and sleep. They learn how to balance going to class, participating in activities, completing schoolwork on time, taking care of themselves, and having fun. They schedule classes, buy personal items, make healthcare appointments and ask professors or other university staff for help.” (Adjusting to…, NC State University). We know that college is not just the only priority that we need to worry about. We have other things to do and we manage our way through it. As college students we need to fit in studying in our crammed schedule. With all the classes we have in college, we need time to study for them. We should use the process of managing our time to give us space to destress ourselves. We should know our limits. Once in a while we should give ourselves a break time from all the stress that is being weighed on our shoulder.
There is a huge difference between college academic and high school academic. From the APA (American Psychological Association) website, stated by Drew C. Appleby, “Students said that both the amount and difficulty of the work they were required to do in college classes had increased significantly from high school”. If the work students were required to do in college increased from high school, then the smart way to approach this would be to not skip any classes in college. Be always on time in your classes.
In college, professors are usually tougher. They expect more from you then they expect more from them. Professors do not allow late assignments or make up tests. Some professors, if they’re nice enough, would let you turn in an assignment late or make up test to some extent. From High School, our teachers would always tell us when assignments are due or what assignments we would have. But in college, our professors expects us to know everything based from the syllabus they have provided us. One tip I suggest is to check your syllabus as soon as you receive it. Do not ignore it and just throw it away in your backpack. Informations on the syllabus are important responsibilities we need to look after. It tells us what our professors expect from us and what percentage each assignment are worth.
To successfully manage your way through college, you should know many techniques of studying. First of all, organize your things so that we are not crowded in the long run. Because of all the classes and extra assignments that our professors will be providing, we will need time for our studies. We should have study habits that we have accumulated throughout the years of our high school years. We can stick to that habit or we can add other techniques that we have learned in our college years. Because high school classes are different from college classes, our ways of taking notes could be changing throughout the years. We should stick to what suits us the best and hopefully that helps us through our years in college. One study habit that many people need is the environment they are in. Find a place that is peaceful and quiet. This can help us study excellently. Another studying habit that we all need to learn perfectly is to not procrastinate. Procrastinating is one important aspect of studying and our college life. In order for us to not procrastinate, we can break the assignments into pieces and give us breaks once in a while. This way, we finish sections of the assignment and we get motivated to finish the other sections of the assignment.
So we all know that in high school, our parents were usually the ones providing finances for school activities. Well in college, things are different. We are now responsible for money management of basic needs and extra spending money (How is college…, UMass). From this fact, we should now know how college will overall be expensive. So starting off with our college tuition. “College tuition prices are way high for any students to pay. Many students will leave college in a huge amount of debt.” (College Tuition…, Johnson). Tuition prices are getting higher each year. After years of graduating from college, there is a possibility that you could still be paying of that college tuition. Mary Bromley stated that “Between 1994 and 2014, tuition fees at a four year public university have risen 110%.” (Why Is College…, Bromley).
That is a 20 year difference. Within those years, tuition prices have gone up by 5.5 each year. One solution that we can do to help us with the expenses is to plan beforehand. There are students that usually make a college bank plan with their parents to help the students with their future college expenses. We can do this by saving up money and admitting them in our college bank plan. Another tip for can help us with our expenses is making a budget plan. It is easy to make a budget plan. Just give yourself time and get organized. Make sure to review, maintain, and update your budget. Making a budget can help you so that you can limit yourself. Make sure to always know what your budget is and stick to that plan. Also with college being expensive, another plan that you can set up is a financial aid plan. “Financial aid can make an expensive college affordable” (Success in College…, Mapping Your Future). I suggest you to apply for a financial aid as soon as possible because you have the opportunity to get free money to help for your college expenses. “Most free aids are distributed on a first-come first-serve basis.” (Success in College…, Mapping Your Future). Whenever you have the time, make sure to apply for a financial aid because there is a possibility that you might not get any aid.
