How hard is your first year in college?

Question

~As far as getting adjusted to not living at home and also knowing who and who not to become friends with? Also, are the classes alot harder than the ones in high school?

Answer 1

In my experience, it's not the work that's hard, it's all the freedom & the lack of discipline that most first year students have a hard time adjusting to. No one is telling you to wake up & go to class, no one is telling you not to stay out all night drinking, so you have to self motivate to do well. Just don't make it a habit not to skip class & do the work and you'll do fine!

As far as friends goes, you'll be in a dorm with a bunch of other people who don't know anyone either, so you'll meet people real fast!

Answer 2

Your frshman year is all about getting adjusted. Some of your classes may be a little bit harder, but what you really need to learn is discipline. You will probably make friends with all the people that live around you in your dorm around the first weekend, and the temptation to sleep all day and drink all night will be great. I would stay away from fraternities, be ause they generally mean trouble. I just finished my freshman year, and I always said if I had the discipline to actually go to all my classes not in an altered state of consciousness I would have straight A's. But I don't, and I finished with a 3.0. Good luck, and Mahalo.

Answer 3

The question you pose is a hard one to answer, only because so many variables are involved. For me, living away from home was a great release--I specifically chose my college because it was as far away as I could manage to go at the time. My roommate, however, suffered from nearly crippling homesickness: he had left a tight-knit family, a number of good friends, and a girlfriend behind. It took him much longer to adjust; he spent a lot of nights huddled in our dorm room, on the phone or on his instant messenger.

The nice thing about making friends in college is that you arrive with an essentially clean slate. If you're close to home, some of the students might be ones you know from high school, but you're all swimming in a much bigger pond, one in which the dynamics will be strikingly different. It's hard to tell initially who to associate with and who to avoid, but that sorts itself out by the usual mechanisms--affinities bubble to the surface pretty quickly. You'll have plenty of bases to work with (classmates who share the same workload, people in your major, people in the clubs you join, teammates, etc.), and you can decide for yourself who you wish to become more intimate with.

Classes are probably the most variable experience in college. You might come across several that are actually easier than ones you took in high school. Much depends on the kinds of preparation you've already had, the consistency of your own work habits, and the individual course requirements and classroom dynamics that determine how well the material makes it across to you. Most folks who know how to budget their time and responsibilities do pretty well in college.

Answer 4

You have to adjust to the fact that many professors don't care if you go to class or not and that you must take it upon yourself to make sure you go. Always go to class unless you're sick! Skipping is a bad habit and easy to get into, hard to get out of.
Yes, it can be challenging to adjust to not living at home at times. Especially when you're frustrated with roommates or classes or something. That's why you have a phone though. You can call home whenever you miss it and visit if you're not too far away.

Answer 5

Maybe it depends on the school you go because my friends at NYU think its hard but i think it was easy, not as easy as h.s. but still not hard. It was great living away from home in dorms because it helps you become independent- no one to tell me what time or when to come home. If you meet people who hardly go to class, stay away, you do not want that influence. Yes there will be many parties and many temptation to stay out at night but you have to be responsible and know that if you have homework due or a test to study for or class early the next morning- don't party but if you have nothing to do, then go out, get drunk, party, socialize etc. but be sure you give time to school work or else you'll fail out but it's a great experience. And you'll have many friends, every one seems so nice.

Answer 6

My experience wasn't that the classes were any harder, they weren't at all. The big adjustment was learning to discipline yourself to make sure and go to class, study as needed and eat right...the temptation is to stay up late all the time, miss class, party at every opportunity and blow off the academics. Thus, I had a 1.2 GPA at the end of my freshman year.

Answer 7

the classes in your first year of college are easy, especially if you went to a private school. You will meet 10-20 new friends on the first day at school

Answer 8

The first response is correct. The classes aren't much harder, but there's nobody there to force you to complete your assignments. It's really easy to party a lot and somehow end up failing all of your classes.

Answer 9

High school is high school. College is all on you...You need to be strong and determined dont be lazy and unfocused. Just be yourself with others it takes time to adjust to change. But you will be ok..the begining is hard...school is work....u'll be ok once you get into ur own system of things.

Answer 10

Sophomore year changed into the hardest for me. Freshman year changed into an adjustment in words of my existence, notwithstanding the instructions were rather trouble-free (for the reason that I had a number of them in severe college). Sophomore year on the different hand changed into poor academically. I took organic and organic chemistry and physics at the same time (poor theory).