4 Things to Expect From College

As a person still going through college, and dealing with the confusing questions regarding which major to choose, what school to go to and those darn student loans that always seem to be looming on the horizon, here are some things that you should expect from college.

#1: What's my major?

Let's say you're a high school senior and you have no idea how to answer all the families questions of "What you want to be when you grow up?" How many times will you have to hear about it before it goes away? In some cases, it might not until you've already graduated. Personally, I've changed my major, and my school, twice since 2015 (when I graduated). And it can really make you tear your hair out.

But I'm here to tell you- Relax! You're young, you have the rest of your life to decide what you want to do with it. Maybe you know exactly what you want to go for, or maybe you think community college will be best till you can get a feel of different majors. Either is fine! I used to think I knew exactly what I wanted- 4-year University then the perfect career. Turns out I had no idea! After my first year, I changed my major. I stayed for two years at University, then ended up going to community college. And I can tell you exactly why- Student loans.

#2: Student Loans

Well, maybe a better title would be student debt, because that's exactly what it is. Since I went to University first, my student debt is through the roof and into the heavens. Which isn't exactly ideal – and exactly why I stopped going and switched to a way cheaper school, which is probably the best decision I could make at this point.

Now here's the best part: I knew how much debt I would have if I went to University. I went in fully knowing that I would come out $100,000 broke. So why did I still go, knowing that? I was naive enough to think that it was okay. At the time, I wasn't concerned about the debt, because I thought all of that could be figured out later. Later came sooner than I thought and I began to realize just how deep into debt I would be.

My advice? Try community college or a cheaper college first before going straight into Uni. Here's an option for what you can do, and something I'm currently doing. If you know what major/University you want to go to, find out if you can take some classes at a Community college that will transfer to your chosen University. You could for approximately 2 years and take all of your General Education classes and save TONS of money, trust me.

#3: College Classes

There are all different types of college classes. From you boring Math and History classes, to the dreaded 9 AM lectures (Why would the professor even want to be up that early?!). There are also the famous "Blow-off classes," I'm sure we've all had at least one of these types of classes. We're absolutely sure the University only required this dumb class because they needed our tuition money. Here's the thing about these "Easy-A" classes though... they are exactly that: Easy-A classes. Sure they may be dumb and super easy, but doesn't that make it so much better? Why are you blowing off the class, not doing the work and essentially failing a super easy class? Put in the small amount of effort needed for the class, get the easy A and don't let your GPA suffer because you wanted to blow-off a class!

#4 Attendance

You know how teachers will sometimes say that attendance counts as a certain percentage of your grade? When they say it, they really mean it! I've been in classes where half of the students are missing and I can't quite figure it out. I get it, sometimes things happen; sickness, car break downs, alarms not going off... it makes sense! If you miss one or two classes throughout the semester no one would really bat an eye, but missing weeks in a row? Tell me... why would you pay quite a pretty big chunk of change to pay for a class, pay for the books and just... not show up? You might as well have taken your tuition money and burned it for all the good it did you. If you pay for the class, you should show up! You won't get your money back for the class, the school still gets paid, the teacher still gets paid and you've missed the lecture for the day! So now you are behind in your work to top it off! If you need the day off, take it. But, if you blow off class on multiple occasions just because you "didn't feel like going" your time in college will be pointless, and you won't really learn a thing.