New Surroundings

I started college in September 2017 and expected it to be the beginning of a two year prison sentence before I went off to university and went through a four year sentence. I have always hated being in school. Primary (elementary) school and secondary (high) school were the worst experiences of my life. Sure, I had good moments but for the most part, I would never ever want to relive those moments again.

When leaving secondary school, your teachers make it their duty to let you know how horrible the transition from secondary school to college will be. With my anxiety I couldn't help but believe what they were saying. But experiencing it for as long as I have, I'm happy to announce that those teachers could never have been more wrong! Of course the work in college is harder, I think it has to be by law, but it is so much better! First of all I get to sleep a lot more due to my late starts. I'm not waking up at the butt crack of dawn each morning. The environment is a lot brighter and a lot more welcoming, you have the odd few teachers that walk around that are always on edge and have to remind you of the college rules and expectations from time to time, but for the most part, the rest of the staff members couldn't care less if you even attended (I obviously attend every day and and try to be on time as possible as I have been conditioned to do so since the early ages of 5 years old).

Throughout my school life and my general life too now, I've had issues with people. I'm not talking just a bad attitude and that people are my problem and they all irritate me (some do). My issue was that I found it hard to be around so many people at any one time and in secondary and primary school, you're stuck with the same people on a daily basis, in one building constantly and I think that helped make me go a little bit mad in secondary school (but that's a whole other story). In college, you're around your classmates during the class and unless you're friends with them, you literally don't have to see them until the next time you have that class. It was the same in high school but you were not allowed to leave the premises until the school day had ended. In college you can literally go out and show up whenever you please as long as you have your ID with you. I literally go into the city about 30 minutes away once a week during my break. Oh my gosh the breaks. THE BREAKS! I get a 15 minute break before each lesson if they're consecutively after the other and on two days in the week I have a whole four hour break in between lessons. Until I saw that I realised how torturous the school day I'd been living everyday for the past 10-11 years of my life in primary and secondary school had been. I'd say it's child abuse the amount of breaks they get but I guess that's going too far. But having a break is definitely helpful, you have enough time to clear your head of everything from the last lesson and move into what you're studying in the next class.

Also in college, your teachers are weirdly relaxed. Not too relaxed that work never gets done and you've got people running across tables and shouting to their friends that probably sat at the back of the room. It's not a zoo. I'm talking about how they make you do the work but it's at your own rate and effort and will help you when you need it and there isn't that incessant pressure put on you to make sure you get the work done like in school. In college, you're far more independent which took a while to get used to but it's better being in control of your own learning and you feel as though you can take in the subject better when you're able to pretty much go at your own speed. About the teachers being relaxed, they laugh and joke with you and some of them even swear. You get to call them by their first name for goodness sake! That was so bizarre for me on the first week, I thought I was breaking some form of code but no! That's just how it is! It's not as artificial like in secondary school when the teachers there are to just give you information. In college, it seems more personal. For instance my psychology teacher she will teach you the topic and adds in tips and tricks to remember certain info and she'll tell you her opinion about the studies and she'll get a debate going in the middle of class if she has to! I don't know about you but I think that's interactive as heck! It makes it seem as though they want to share all of this information that they spent years learning about themselves, with us; not just because it's their job title.

College isn't toxic. You got people talking about each other but they're not from your direct friendship group so you don't even have to care about it. You don't even have a set group of friends in college. I have sets of friends in every class. My whole drama class is a friendship group and that's so great. And you still meet new people every day. There are so many people that I don't know within the college and in my classes and I'm in no rush either unlike secondary school when you think that's the end of everything and if you don't have enough friends when you leave you're not going to have anybody. I'm happy I didn't have that many secondary school friends that I was super close with and I'm grateful for the new people I have met because they've introduced me to new things and new perspectives and I love learning. I didn't before but now I'm in a new environment learning totally new lessons rather than being in the same old draining subjects for endless amounts of years. And I sure have made some lifelong friends, they're so much nicer and accepting and mature. I think they're wonderful.

All it took was a new surrounding for me to feel as though my life is getting back on the right track. You'll agree If you try it too!