On top of being super crazy exciting, the transition to college can be intimidating. There’s so much that will be unknown and different for you. You’ll be surrounded by new people: both in teaching roles and as peers. You’ll maybe be living away from your parents for the first time in your life. You’ll develop all new routines, make new friends, and learn many, many new things. You know all of this to be true, and it’s something to be excited about! But that doesn’t quite make it any less scary. Well, while I can’t calm your nerves about moving into a dorm with someone you don’t know and learning to navigate a campus that is unfamiliar (nothing but experience can!), I’m here to help calm your nerves about one thing in particular: college classes.

For most of us, the first thirteen years of our education is spent in the mainstream schooling system: we spend 7+ hours every day shuffling from one classroom to the next, and we do piles of homework in the evenings and on weekends. As we shuffle about the same giant building all day long, there are numerous teachers, principals, and other supervisors lurking around every corner, telling you what to do, scolding you when you’re late for class, questioning you about where you need to be. And when you’re sick, well your mom or dad had better call the school and vouch for you because otherwise no one will believe that you were actually sick, and the administration will act as if you’ve committed some heinous crime. Let’s face it: people hold our hands and nudge us through the first thirteen years of mainstream schooling. Teachers schedule your every waking moment during the school day, remind you about homework, send your grades and progress updates to your parents (along with reports of poor performance and behavior issues…), and we have just come to expect that. In fact, it might be kind of weird if all of that was taken away.

But wait…

Enter college.

As a freshman at any college, hopefully you’ll be given SOME guidance prior to arriving at, or just upon arriving to, your new college home. You should have already registered for classes before arriving and know your course schedule when you get to campus. You’ll need to be sure to purchase any required textbooks and reading materials prior to starting classes – you should have received some kind of list of these as well. These logistical aspects of college courses are pretty straightforward and shouldn’t cause much difficulty. (One word of advice: go find the building and the classroom of each of your classes in the days leading up to classes actually starting. There’s nothing worse than rolling in late to class on Day 1 because you got lost and realized you didn’t know where you were going. Talk about embarrassing.)

So, you’ve purchased your textbooks, you’ve located your classrooms in advance, and you think you’re all set to get an easy 4.0 on your first semester of courses. You’ll show up, your professor will guide the way, and you’ll complete all the homework. Piece of cake. Well…

College is quite a bit different than high school. This can be a REALLY good thing AND a bad thing (but mostly just until you get used to it). Below, we’ve outlined some of the differences you should be prepared for when you walk into your first college classroom.

5 Ways College Classes Are Different Than High School Classes:

1.     You get to study what you want to study

So you probably know that every college requires all of its students to take “generals.” These are General Education courses that are required of all students at the school to take prior to receiving their diplomas. There’s not usually a requirement as to what year you need to take different generals, but make sure you know what these requirements are as you register for courses each year so that you know you’re on track to graduate. For example, the private liberal arts school where I got my degree requires students to earn a designated number of credits from courses that fall into each of the following categories: internationalism, quantitative thinking, multiculturalism, writing, and foreign language. This school requires four semesters of a foreign language, so that’s a good example of a requirement that you need to prepare for – you can’t wait until senior year to knock that one off the list. So make sure you know what these requirements are for your school right off the bat. It will help you plan ahead and keep you from having to give up taking courses you’re excited about in order to complete these requirements at the last minute.

These few required courses aside, the rest of it is up to you! You literally get to pick every single other class that you take during your college education. Most fulltime college students will take four or five classes each semester. That means that the majority of the classes you take will be ones that YOU PICK because you WANT to take them. How’s that for a difference from high school? Sure, there are some high school exploratory classes that you can pick and choose for yourself, but most of your high school day is filled up with required math courses, required English courses, required gym classes, and the list goes on and on. College is your opportunity to create your own educational plan. YOU get to decide what to study.

2. TONS of course options

That brings us into the second way that college courses are WAY different than high school courses: There are so many options! In most high schools, you’re pretty confined to what course offerings are available to you, but this is SO not the case at most colleges. And the bigger the college is that you elect to go to, the more likely it is that they’ll have even more course offerings and major and minor options to choose from.

That’s a lot of opportunity for you explore different courses and really get excited about what you’re learning. Now, you’ll also need to make sure that you know how many credits are required for majors and minors at your college and put yourself on a good pace to complete those as well. But you don’t have to know what you’ll major in right away when you get to the school. Explore new departments and fields of study that maybe you’ve never heard of or had the opportunity to learn about. Maybe you want to know more about anthropology or you think you might be interested in creative writing – the opportunities are literally endless, and this is the perfect time to explore those things that you’re intrigued by.

I quickly found out during college that language is something that I’m passionate about. I had no idea what “linguistics” was before walking into my first 100-level course, and I was quickly hooked on it. My college experience consisted of taking classes on Old English, how to make all the sounds that exist in spoken language, Beginner Arabic, Historical Linguistics, and more. If you find something that you’re really passionate about, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to explore it thoroughly. Where my high school didn’t even have one single class that touched on linguistics, I completed an entire degree in this field and took so many fascinating classes along the way. The point is, you’re going to find something you’re passionate about, and as soon as that happens, school isn’t going to feel like a chore. I don’t think there are many students who really enjoy what they do on a day-to-day basis in high school. But college is totally different. You are the master of your plan, and you can take really interesting courses that make you excited to learn. More than that, you can specialize in something that you truly enjoy and set yourself up on a career path in that field as well.

3.     Number of contact-hours with the professor

Let’s go back to your high school experience for a second. At almost every single moment of every single day there is someone breathing down your neck, making sure you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing when you’re supposed to be doing it. That is SO not true in college. The first place that this becomes evident is with the tiny amount of time that you actually even spend with your professor. Most college courses will have approximately 3 contact hours with the professor EACH WEEK. Many colleges structure classes to occur for 1 hour on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week or for 1 hour and 30 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday each week. This means that over the course of a full week, you only spend 3 hours with your professor in front of you actually walking you through anything. I remember thinking that seemed crazy, and it was kind of hard to get used to at first.

Now, that’s not to say that you are only going to focus on that course for 3 hours each week, because that is not even close to being true. There will a lot of coursework that you’ll be expected to complete outside of class. The biggest thing I remember being surprised about in my first college courses was the sheer amount of reading that I was expected to outside of class prior to showing up for each class. It’s not uncommon for a professor to assign a required reading of over 100 pages of articles on some super specific topic that you’re expected to complete over the weekend. Then on Monday you’d better be ready to discuss those articles with your peers during class. Similarly, depending on the course, you might be expected to write multiple essays each week, or complete several worksheets before each class. Basically, the overall homework to class time ratio is completely switched from high school. The majority of your learning and coursework will be done outside of class and you’ll be solely responsible for making sure you make time to get it all done.

You’re in charge of making sure that you’re actually learning and getting your work done, so your professor is not going to hold your hand every step of the way. Sure your professors will make themselves available if you seek them out with questions or concerns, but they’re not likely to check in on you and make sure you’re doing okay, that your final paper is on track, and oh remember, your homework that’s due on Friday should be about halfway done by now! Nope. Not at all…

4.     Increased levels of independence

Being in charge of your own learning and coursework ties into the broad theme of increased independence during college. Most students will be legal adults when they step into their first college classroom. As an adult, you are expected to do what you’re supposed to do and do it when you’re supposed to do it. Your professor is going to expect that of you, and they will act accordingly. You’ll be given homework assignments or term papers and projects, and it’s generally going to be up to you to make sure you stay on top of these things and get everything done on time.

Similarly, your professor is not going to scold you or discipline you if you fail to complete a homework assignment, if you choose not to come to class, or if you get a poor grade on an exam. You’re an adult, and it is your choice not to complete homework, not to show up for class, or not to study for an exam. Unless these behaviors get really out of control and your GPA drops very low, you will be let to continue with these behaviors for as long as you’d like. You need to decide for yourself if you think these behaviors are appropriate and be the adult that holds yourself accountable. After all, remember that you only see your professor for about 3 hours each week. Every class that you skip means you’ve missed somewhere between 33% to 50% of the class time for that week. That’s going to add up quickly and leave you falling behind. Additionally, many college courses are graded heavily on class participation. That means not only are you expected to show up, but you’re also expected to speak up. That’s pretty hard to do if you’re constantly skipping classes and losing track of what’s going on in the course. Do yourself a favor and go to class and listen and participate. Your future self will thank you for it because it will lead to better grades and you’ll retain more information from the class as well.

In college, behavioral issues will probably occur much less frequently than you’ve experienced in your high school. One reason for a lack of behavioral issues goes back to the fact that you’re all adults. You’re perfectly capable of sitting and listening and behaving like a good college student, so most of the time that’s what’s going to happen. But, the even bigger reason for a lack of behavior issues is that you and your classmates actually WANT to be there, and you’re probably also paying A LOT to do so. So you’re probably not going to do anything to jeopardize you being allowed to be there. What do I mean? Well, if you think back to high school again, probably too much of your teachers’ time was spent disciplining and scolding students for silly and wrong behaviors. That’s a natural part of high school. Every single one of your classmates (not to mention you yourself) was forced to sit in those classrooms and complete their high school degrees. There’s naturally going to be some pushback from some students who don’t want to be there or maybe don’t understand the point of being there. College is the opposite. Every single student has worked hard to get into the college and wants to get good grades and be allowed to stay there. Many students and families will take out huge amounts of student loan debt just to get the chance to complete their college degrees.

In short, you are in charge of your actions in college. It’s up to you to make sure you’re learning and retaining information, getting your coursework done, and showing up and participating in classes. You aren’t likely to be scolded and punished if you don’t do these things, so you need to hold yourself accountable. Remember, it’s up to you to decide what kind of college student you want to be and just how much you want to learn and grow during your college career.  

5. Increased level of difficulty (and expectations)

College isn’t supposed to be easy. This is the place where you’re meant to challenge your brain to its full extent, and rightfully so you’ll spend a lot of time stressing over important midterm and final exams and lengthy essays.

The hardest task I ever had in college came during the spring semester of my junior year. I was studying abroad in Brussels, Belgium and my final project consisted of conducting independent research on childhood language acquisition within the Francophone community and then writing a 40-page paper on the topic ALL IN FRENCH. (FYI: I don’t speak French natively.) This was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life, and, because of that, I’m super crazy proud of myself for conquering it. You’re going to have those same feelings of stress and grief and worry, and then the fog is going to lift and you’re going to have those same feelings of accomplishment when you ace an important exam or when you get an awesome grade on an final term paper. I’m not saying that things are never going to go wrong and that you’ll never get a bad grade in college, but it all comes back to the fact that if you care to be there and really want to learn about a specific topic, you’re likely going to fight the battle and win. And the fact that it was incredibly hard makes you feel that much more proud of yourself for everything you’ve accomplished.

So, there you have it. The transition to college is going to be a somewhat anxious time no matter what, but hopefully now you feel at least a little more educated on what you can expect from your classes.

Good luck, and happy planning!

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