High school is a four-year continual preparation lesson for what students can expect when they finally cross the stage at graduation.

During this preparation phase, students experience stress, lots of tears, late nights, happiness, and life lessons that teachers have been hired to teach students. Although some students don’t think that high school could truly be preparing students for college, even after teachers have repeatedly said, “This is exactly how college will be,” and, “I’m here to prepare you for college,” high school is essentially a preparation stage for students before they leave home and attend a bigger school, with more kids, fewer rules, more parties, and more responsibility.

Even though high school is the official stepping stone to adulthood, information and preparation can slip through the cracks leaving people with questions and the facing uncertainty; In this new series, High School: The Stepping Stone, all questions will be answered while students prepare for college.

“The biggest challenge I had was the new level of personal responsibility I had.”

Jack Golden, Junior at The University of Texas at Dallas and former student of Melissa High School, said he had a few problems when he transitioned from high school life to college life, but one of his biggest problems was gaining the new level of personal responsibility of attending classes or turn assignments in for a class. In high school, students have teachers who constantly remind them that they need to turn an assignment in, but in college professors may only speak on the due date and guidelines for an assignment just a few times.

In America it is required by law that children must attend some form of school, but it is not required by law for students to attend college courses or college in general, it’s highly recommended, but that element adds to previous levels of personal responsibility due to the fact that professors do not care whether or not a student has attended a single class.

“What I wish I had known before was that the library was an incredible resource on a college campus, especially with me and someone with a terrible attention span. Doing your homework in the library is much more efficient.”

Most high school students do not do their homework in the library, they simply do it at home alone or with friends, but in college, it is so much easier to meet friends or classmates at the library to work through an assignment together, as Jack found out through personal experience. A library is a great tool, whether in high school or in college; Students have easy access to textbooks, internet, or any class materials they may need in order to complete an assignment for a class.

“I wish someone had told me how important it would be to develop my social skills in order to schedule study groups.”

All students, high school and college, are always encouraged to develop their social skills so that they may effectively communicate with friend, classmate, or colleague, but these skills come in handy when someone wishes to work with others to complete an assignment from a shared teacher or professor.

Social skills play a huge role in college, students not only need to communicate with fellow classmates but with the professor as well, in case a problem may arise with an assignment.