5 Differences: College vs High School

All high school students know that college has some significant differences from high school. But what are those difference? Let’s find out.

Attendance

If you’re in high school, unless you are sick or have a documented reason to miss class, you should be in class. Cutting class is usually only done by people who don’t care about the material.

College classes usually keep attendance, However, there are some that do not. If you are capable of learning the material on your own and don’t have mandatory attendance, you can skip class. That said, skipping class for no reason will hurt your grades.

Eating in Class

In high school, there is a set time for lunch. In most American schools, this time is a paltry 25-30 minutes, which includes the time to walk to the cafeteria, wait in line, eat your food, and get to your next class. Most teachers won’t let you snack on a granola bar in class, and for good reason. No teacher wants to pick up after a student who leaves a mess in the classroom.

In college, professors understand that there isn’t always enough time in a student’s schedule to eat lunch between classes. Depending on the type of class professors allow you to eat snack bars or sometimes your entire lunch in the classroom. They also expect you to clean up after yourself, something college students usually have learned by that point.

Free Time

For a high school student, that’s in the evening when their homework is finished–unless they procrastinate and do it right before bed. Also, there’s free time on the weekends, assuming they don’t have weekend homework or a test on Monday.

College students, since they usually spend less hours in class, typically have a more amount of “free time”. However, due to a larger amount of out-of-class work, this time requires even more careful management.

Punctuality

In high school, there is no “good” excuse to be late to class. You have five to ten minutes to go from one class to the next. Sometimes you have time to exchange books in your locker or take a quick restroom break, but usually you go straight from point A to point B.

In college, Students can have 10-15 minutes between classes, or 4-5 hours. They may have to cross an entire campus in order to make it to class on time. Some professors don’t like getting interrupted by students walking in a few minutes late, but if you explain your long route, they won’t be so as unreasonable as to suggest you fly or teleport to get to class on time.

MLA Format

In highschool, MLA format is required from almost every English teacher. As there are few other classes that require citing sources, it’s unlikely that high school students will even learn to use other citation formats by the time they enter college.

While the MLA format is used by college English courses, freshmen will be surprised that the majority of courses use APA format for citations.

 

 

Have any other comparisons that I didn’t include in this post? Leave a comment below!