People shouldn’t long for high school

College brought many welcome changes from the hellish atmosphere that was high school… for most of us. Many people leave college ready for the freedom, new friends, the lack of cliques and just the lifestyle overall.

Others seem to still be living off the high of their pre-college days. There are people who still wear their high school state sweatshirts, hang out exclusively with their high school friends and will live the rest of their lives insisting that high school was definitively the time of their lives.

There’s a lot wrong with idolizing your teen years when you have the whole of the rest of your life to live, other than it highlighting your inability to move on and your revering of a time that included mandatory gym (are you insane?).

If you’re like me, you were ready to graduate from high school about two days into your freshman year. Eight hours of classes that begin at eight in the morning? Most college students can’t handle more than two classes in one day even if they start at noon; our high school schedules were insane.

Add in after school activities, teachers who constantly insist their tyrannical ways will prepare you for college and a 60-year-old health teacher putting a condom on a rotten banana and I give high school a big “no thanks.”

High school was a time of awkwardness, acne and poor fashion choices. I think I’ll pass. Stuffing hundreds (or dozens if you are part of the rural crowd) of teenagers into a small space while they learn how to deal with emotions, relationships and physics is bound to go poorly. 

High school is filled with a social hierarchy that is as much based on reality as the facts on Fox News (so not very much). Most people in high school have known each other since childhood, so the drama goes way back. 

Add in after school activities, teachers who constantly insist their tyrannical ways will prepare you for college and a 60-year-old health teacher putting a condom on a rotten banana and I give high school a big “no thanks.”

The NDSU students who loved high school are not hard to find, because believe me, they’ll tell you all about it the first chance they get. How they went to state for wrestling. How they were on the prom court. What their ACT score was, or worse, the people who want to compare ACT scores.

These people are also easy to spot because they usually surround themselves with similar people. They’re still best friends with the same kids their mom’s placed them next to in daycare twenty years ago. Sure, some of these people might have been bound to end up as friends, but a lot of these people just stuck to the most convenient person and never let go.

They talk about inside jokes with their high school friends, comparing everything to something they did with their buddies five years ago. They can’t think in terms of now, but only how everything relates to the good ole’ days of football games and getting driven around by their mom.

College is certainly not perfect, but it is without a doubt better than high school; so why do people insist high school is better? There seem to be a few reasons, the first involves the amount of effort college requires. Freedom in college includes the freedom not to go to class, to sign up for classes that are really difficult and the freedom to not do your work without anyone there to keep you accountable.

People who are used to a system constantly checking up on them, as many people have in high school, they feel like they’re drowning in schoolwork in college. These people benefitted from a system where their parents had to call them out from school and their teachers pestered them to get work done.

The no child left behind policy doesn’t exist in college. In fact, many majors encourage leaving some people behind to show that not everyone can handle it (architecture, anyone?).

Another requirement of the college environment is that you put yourself out there. When people were placed into sports by their parents, into classes by advisors, and into friend groups by chance, they aren’t always the best at doing things on their own.

People who love high school seem to love the simplicity of having everything they did and everyone they spent time with decided for them. 

With this, not everyone is up for the antics of high school. So, when people who reveled in the drama get to college, they’re often in for a rude awakening when people don’t respond positively. You’re not stuck with the same group of people for 12 years in college, if someone is rude or offensive, you simply go talk to one of the other 16,000 people who go to NDSU.

High school was a dream for the indecisive and exclusive. For everyone else, it was a drama-filled and taxing wasteland. For those of you already longing for your letterman days, you have a long life ahead of you.