There are many challenges in life that test us as we age, school becomes an important part of our lives, and we are pushed to do well. All these years of school are meant to prepare us for college and from there move on to the real world. Although college is simply a step above high school, there are many differences between the lives of high school students and college students. College and high school differ greatly in their economic, personal, and social aspects, which will be discussed in this essay. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The biggest change between high school and college is the freshman years. In college, students have much more independence than they ever had in high school. Moving away from their families and living with strangers they've never met before may seem like a bad thing, but this is an experience that will teach a new college student how to deal with conflict and prepare them for the real world. The excitement and pressure of the first day of college takes a student back to their high school years. The first day of freshman year makes a student feel like they are in the wrong place, it wouldn't be a normal first day of school if you didn't get lost looking for lessons. An important part of school is time management. All the long nights and countless mornings of waking up at 5 a.m. take their toll on students. In high school you can expect to spend approximately 40 hours in class and are required by law to attend 5 days a week. Students are expected to learn the most information in class and to learn at the same pace as all your classmates. In college, however, you can expect to spend almost half your time in class. As a college student, you will only spend about 15-18 hours per week in class, this might seem great at first but there is always a problem. With each class ranging from fifty minutes to three hours, professors tend to cram as much material as possible into each class and expect you to learn the majority of the material outside of class. With these large time gaps students must learn to manage their time effectively so they can make the most of their free time. College students are notorious for procrastinating and rushing through assignments the night before deadlines. When you move from high school to college you tend to lose most of your friends and rely on social media more often. In high school, most students tend to have their own “clique” of friends that they have known since middle school. They meet every day for lunch and after a long day at school they go home to their families and play all night. They don't have a lot of responsibilities and life is great. However, this is not the case in college. It doesn't matter who you were in high school because in college everyone starts from scratch. Students have the opportunity to create the social life they've always wanted. The friends you make in college will be some of your best friends for life, those three or four people you can count on to have your back, no matter what. College is a choice whether you want to attend or not. A student must pay for his or her college education. So if a student doesn't live up to their expectations, they know they've wasted their hard-earned money. Because students pay to get into college, they work and study twice as much as they did in high school. The different choices you make and the consequences of those decisions, 48(4), 403-434.