What do you think are the main differences between high school and college?

Oh man. Overall, I had a decent time in high school, but I LOVED college. (I just finished it). I went to a somewhat small college with around 3000 student, and a high school with about 1500 students.

Classes: in college they were WAY more interesting than high school. So where class discussion, and class mates. It was exciting to be around people who wanted to learn. (Some didn’t, but they obviously didn’t contribute to the class, and can be blissfully ignored).

Money: in college, I had tons of it! I worked various jobs, all of which were great fun where I met people and expanded my skills. The extra cash was great. I did well academically and earned many grants and scholarships. I don’t have any loans, although my college was an expensive private one. In high school, on the other hand, I was too busy trying to get top grades and participate in as many things as possible to get some scholarships (I did, and it really paid off). So I didn’t have a job, and all money came through my parents. Which was not good.

Social life: in college, I had TONS of it! In high school, I had some fun, but it doesn’t even come close. The parties were not typical. I had this great crowd of friends and we would get together and sing sea shanties. It was a fabulous time. Costume parties, all-around-fun with my study buddies - it was very joyous.

Love life: mine bloomed in college, though it was pretty exciting in high school, as well. Nothing bad happened, even though I was in some risky situations, since my college seemed to contain some really decent people that didn’t take advantage of that, ever. (Another reason to prefer sea-shanty parties over beer-pong parties, in addition to awesomeness.)

Self-esteem: this is an important one. High school, for a lot of my friends, though not so much for me, was terrible for their self-esteem. College seemed to fix that. At my college in particular I met many people who were shunned for their sexual preferences or gender identity throughout high school, but they flourished with confidence at college. Obviously, my college was quite liberal, so I don’t think this is universal. Nevertheless, in college, no one really cared like they do in high school about judging each other. That seemed to be the case for high school friends who went to other colleges, as well, even more conservative ones.

Dorm living: in college, you (most likely) live in dorms, which is actually really awesome. I didn’t get too know too many people this way, but some folks did. I though the convenience of being 10 minutes away from everyone was fantastic. There were lots of fun sleepovers, romantic as well as otherwise.

That’s all I can think of right now :)

Of course in college you are generally on your own. Nobody is there to tell you to do your homework, go to bed, get up, go to class, etc. It is all up to you and frankly a lot of students aren’t ready for this and flunk out.

Classes require more independent work. Expect to spend 1-3 hours outside of class studying for every hour in class. The occasional class might not require any outside work or the other extreme where every waking moment isn’t enough.

I was more popular in college than high school. In high school I was considered weird but in college lots of people thought me interesting.

Some people love college and some people hate it. Like most things the more you put into it the more you will get out of it.

School timing is fixed, but college not, you can go anywhere at any time. You are slave in school but in College you enjoy freedom. In college you meet with professionlism but not in schools. No burden of college study while burden for School homework.