Hey there Giantbomb, its another nameless asshat on the forums. I normally hate writing blogs because quite frankly, I'm a terrible writer and no one gives half a shit for me. =( Buuuut I'm pretty bored at the moment and I've been meaning to post my thoughts on the differences between high school and college. If you didn't know, I've graduated from high school and now I'm attending college as a first year, taking a bunch of random courses that me and my father picked up hastily (its a long story that I won't get into). I'm more than a week in so far, and things are pretty overwhelming. So here's what I've got to say about college, the good, the ugly, everything that I can think of so far.
  
[Geek]There's a lot of things that are different from your usual secondary institutions. Their facilities are obviously much larger, more modern, more luxurious, more confusing, more packed with students and much more well equipped. I checked out the specs on our computers like any normal curious geek or nerd would and was surprised that we'd even need to have a GeForce 4000 series card in our computers. Not very high end or anything, but obviously interested that they'd go out of their way making sure their computers are speedy, unlike in high school where those computers feel like they're more than +5 years old (they're actually pretty new, but lack any real performance with a shitty network and memory-whoring security software). Our college has a pretty damn fast network too, 120 Mb/s download rate is glorious. I'm just a little annoyed that they haven't upgraded to at least Vista; I was hoping they'd upgrade to Windows 7. I just... can't use XP anymore. I'm sorry, its ancient.[/Geek]
 
Alright, enough of the geek facts. There's so many unfamiliar faces in school, chances are that you'll never ever meet everyone like you do in high school (at least in your grade, anyway). What I enjoyed about high school was that I would always go to a usual place to hang out with my friends during our lunch breaks. But in college, everyone's schedule are different, so the group of people you'll be hanging out on campus is significantly reduced. To be fair, it did take me time to find a right group of friends in high school, so I should give college the benefit of the doubt. Still, I feel that college is a much more individual geared institution and for good reasons too (not that I agree with them). 
 
Seeing a familiar face on campus is always a relieving sight. You don't see your old acquaintances or friends very often, but when you do its pretty nice to see them after being overwhelmed with the number of strangers you'll see on a daily basis. I'm not sure why, but because of the feeling of such isolation and individuality that is found in college, made me more open to talking to faces I've seen from our same high school, even though I may not have talked to them or only "know their face". There's this one girl that I honestly never talk to, but after bumping into each other a few times we'd acknowledge each other and have a small talk. That never happened in high school. Its like starting all over again, with a lack of any real social or cultural barriers that stop us from interacting with each other. Same deal with some other guys I may not know very well. :3
 
The age disparity in college can get pretty outrageous, since we can have some dudes from their 30's or 40's attending the same course as you do. Its hard to distinguish who's new and who's been here for a while and is older than you; except maybe that first years like me are intimidated by everything. So its interesting. Typically, in high school you'd more or less stick with your own grade and ignore everyone else, especially the lower grades. That doesn't happen in college, its much more of a "open society". The great thing about the whole age thing though is that for once nobody seems like they're really 12 years old or some short person with some height issues. Believe me, Hollywood lied to me about grade 8s are as tall as college students. FUCK YOU HOLLYWOOD. T_T
 
There's really no "fitting in" scenario you get from high school. In high school there's always these social rules that, now that I think about it, are pretty absurd and naive. They're pretty hilarious looking back at it now, but they're pretty tough on odd people like you and me. College, different story. There's no real social laws that you have to abide to. And chances are, you won't be harassed for being "different". Because whatever program you signed up for, more likely than not there will be people who are similar to you in personality, behaviour and most certainly in common interest. I took a course on web development and programming; and unsurprisingly there's a male majority and a bunch of smart nerds. Not the most social of the bunch, I may add. There might be certain social laws, but you're all segregated from other groups, so we all live together happily. This individuality and no social order structure in college is where I suspect most nerds will thrive in, naturally a beauty. 
 
Classes also happen to be less overwhelming than I first thought. The pacing is actually remarkably slower; for better or for worse. This is great because you can sort of ignore your work for a bit before deciding to finish up your assignments or projects. The courses that are one hour long feels very short, while ones that are two hours feel not long at all. Time really flies by in college. Most professors are good at their job from my impression, most professional enough to teach what we need to learn at any rate. Our programming teacher sounds a little dimwitted sometimes though. =P 
 
Closing thoughts: So far, college feels alright. People make the fuss out of college way too much, about the change and all. If you're in high school and hate high school's stupid social rules and never fit in; I think you'll LOVE post-secondary. Post-secondary is VERY open about differences on one and another; you can be yourself without having to worry about being left out or excluded in a group. There's certainly some things that you will miss in high school, like all the drama and feeling apart of a community of the grade somehow, but college certainly is great and should not be overlooked.