If I could go back to high school knowing everything I know now, it"d be the best time of my life. People use that phrase all the time, and they use it rather lightly. They say college is "the best years of your life," but I strongly disagree. College requires you to be too much of a grown-up, too focused on what you want in life. High school, on the other hand, was perfect. You didn't have to worry about the price of your education, the cost of your mistakes, or the consequences of your bad grades. Worrying about your lack of motivation was not an issue. These concerns rear their ugly heads the minute you move on campus. In high school the most you have to worry about is whether or not Jessica really saw Sally's boyfriend with another girl, or how you can get that cute senior in your government class to notice you, now that you"re finally legal. So why is being carefree and unaffected in college the equivalent of having a death wish? I"d give anything to go back to high school, because that was a time when the class work was so easy it was pointless, eight hours in school was just daily social time, and the pressure in your life only went as far as what to do on the first date.
There was no such thing as the demand to work hard in class, because no one HAD to work hard. Schoolwork in high school was simply busywork that was ridiculously easy. I took a government class my sophomore year, and, among other pointless assignments, we were given a worksheet that instructed us to list the presidents of the U.S. using our textbooks. I had homework in my geography class that required me to color in a map of Africa. On a rare occasion, the homework assigned actually demanded a little work and small amounts of thought to complete, but that was only several times a month. Conversely, college opens a whole new perspective on homework. Entire papers are due in two days, several chapters of reading is assigned per day.
