I remember walking into High School for my first day as well as I remember by first day at Baruch. Its funny how similar and different the experience could be. The uncertainty I felt my first day of high school wasn’t there the first day I stepped into college. Everybody knows that they are in college because they want to further their education meanwhile in high school I felt like i was being forced from one jail and graduating into another. The similarities are more physical in terms of the same white walled classrooms with projectors. Some teachers know the material they teach thoroughly and want to be teaching while others are in school to get paid and go home. In these cases it is up to the student to figure everything out on their own.
I have always considered myself a competitive guy and this craving for competition really manifested itself in the form of school work for the first time. Instead of caring in high school about what I could do socially on the weekends, I found a drive in the form of schoolwork. Moving out, the sudden surge of freedom, availability of almost anything anytime didn’t overwhelm me because now I feel like i have a set goal. Some may call it maturity. I personally feel like it is the realization that almost every college student understands that they have to be better than whoever is around them if they plan to make more money or have a better job then their peers. It is a realization that as a student you can go out every night have a good time but what it really hurts is your edge over everyone else around you. It only dawned on me recently that this competition is as important as people tried telling me in high school and its really the best time to take advantage of everything school has to offer.
