Poll: Was high school or college easier for you?

From an "academic" standpoint, high school was easier, of course. But from a personal development standpoint, high school was more challenging, primarily due to my insecurities about trying to fit in, to not be a loser, etc.

fsdasfdasdfa wrote:

From an "academic" standpoint, high school was easier, of course. But from a personal development standpoint, high school was more challenging, primarily due to my insecurities about trying to fit in, to not be a loser, etc.

Ok. Thanks.

More?

Went to a top notch public high school. College was much easier, functioned at a much higher level being self directed.

Shameful slacker wrote:

Went to a top notch public high school. College was much easier, functioned at a much higher level being self directed.

Thanks for answering. This is very much my own experience as well.

I found college to be less work than high school. Profs aren't going to baby you and check to see if you did your homework every class. You get a paper or two and a few labs, depending on the class. I found that I could do well on exams without buying/reading any textbooks or taking notes, as most of the instructors posted class notes online and these accounted for the majority of the material on exams.

That said, I was not in a particularly rigorous major (Earth Sciences). I'm sure that most engineering students find college to be harder and more work. How hard you want to challenge yourself is really up to you. I have some regrets now that I took the slacker route through college, rather than truly testing my abilities with hard courses. I loved my major but, if I had to do it over again, I would have minored in something a little more challenging, like maybe physics. Oh well...

Depends on the college.

Adams State we weren't fooling around. We were putting in the mileage.

ENMU (Eastern New Mexico University) Program is a joke.

Graduated in 2010.

I performed better academically and athletically in college but wouldn't say it's 'easier'. I went to a liberal arts school that made us take a lot of basic classes freshman year that felt like High School 2.0 but as you got into your major in years 2-4 it became more demanding. I would compare it to running, I was running faster in college but the process of running 100MPW is a lot more strenuous than 35MPW but if you have the mindset and are motivated for the challenge you'll do fine.

I found college to be easier--or at least less stressful--because I had way more control over my own time. Between school, sports, and family commitments, it was usually 7 or 8pm by the time I had a second of time that wasn't committed to anything when I was in high school. Even if I only had an hour of homework to do, it sucked to not even be able to get started on it until that late.

In college, the classes were harder and there was way more out-of-class time required, but I could pretty easily cram it all into a normal 8-5 workday type schedule.

HS was much more difficult socially - I was buffetted by social issues, like a lot of kids. By collegetime I was pretty comfortable in my skin and knew who I was.

Academically... college was much harder... I didn't work very hard in HS.

I started fairly mediocre in college academically and had to up my game. Which was satisfying - getting better grades through hard work was good.

College, for sure.

I did not go to college the normal route. I worked for about 9 years after HS and then went to college. So, high school was not so great as far as I recall. I was skinny. Got the crap beat out of me often. I didn't really get any attention from any girls. I never ever studied. I got poor grades. I never made varsity on any team ( we did not have xc or track)

So, when I finally realized I was going to be working labor forever if I didn't change, I went back to college. When I was in college, I "got it".

And, I realized I really blew it in high school. Because I really just didn't "get it". I just thought me and my friends would have fun, and never prepared for anything else.

So, yes, college was easier, and my best memories.

To add on, I think where most college students struggle is time management because you do have a lot more out of class time and assignments are sometimes spread out over the whole semester. You need to be able to on a Sunday afternoon say you're going to sit for an hour or two and work on a paper that's due in 3 weeks because you're traveling for meets the next 2 weekends and know you won't have the time to do it then. A lot of 'stress' I saw on students was them either forgetting assignments or procrastinating until the night before, pulling an all nighter, and getting run down from that.

College was easier.

I went to a very competitive High School that required an acceptance exam and only accepted a relatively low percentage of applicants. That meant I had 4 years of practice in a highly demanding environment before going to college. It's not that the High School classes were inherently more difficult. It's just that a well prepared 18 year old is going to be more successful than a 14 year old who never experienced such an environment before.

Definitely college. My high school (a magnet) wasn't easy and actually failed you if you didn't do your work. None of that grade inflation BS. But at the same time the work was inherently uninteresting so it was really hard to want to do your work.

College was equally challenging in terms of grading, but much more interesting.

My HS GPA was a 3.1 (including AP courses) and my college GPA was a 3.81 (math and computer science double major).

TBH I'm not done with college yet (3 semesters to go!), but I've found it much easier. In high school I had homework, projects, and tests almost everyday. It was never ending assignments that I worked on every night. In college there's barely any homework and I only need to study a few days before the exam to do fine.

I went to a very highly ranked high school (one of the few in the country with a Calc II class,) and it was a complete breeze compared to undergrad. Finishing engineering school at a pretty-highly ranked school nearly killed me, and in retrospect, I think I got in over my head and should have gone for one tier lower. I went to grad school at another university in the same tier, but it wasn't in engineering, and that was a complete cakewalk, easier than both high school and undergrad.

Socially, high school and undergrad were both pretty good. Socially, grad school was quite dismal, as I was a lot older than everyone else.

Graduated from a good high school (very large for this area of the state). Honors, AP, Eagle Scout, Track, Cross, member of one of the better music programs in the state.

Went to a good local community college after high school. Only took 12-14 credits per semester. Continued running alone (no team or club). I worked 20-30 hours per week (depending on the semester), and over the course of my two years there I was a board member on 4 different student organizations, one of which I founded and served as president for.

Now a junior at a medium (25,000 student) liberal arts college. Liberal studies major (primarily linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy) taking 15-18 credits per semester with a GPA around 3.6 each semester. Still training, now with the running club. I was working 20-25 hours per week, until I quit half way through this past semester. 18 credits and 25 hours of work per week was too much, and my bosses wouldn't flex on the hours.

Anyway, that was too much ground information, so now to answer your question.

All factors considered, high school was much more difficult than my time at the community college, but even the easy weeks now are more difficult than the hardest weeks of high school, even after quitting my job.

I'd say from a labor standpoint high school was much harder. Waking up early, class and practice from 7:30-5:30 then a decent amount of homework most nights. Plus, terrible classes like history and English.

The material in college was much more challenging though. I did a lot more studying and test prep as well as really trying to understand the material in most classes, rather than just figuring out how to answer the questions.

High school was vastly easier.

I attended three high schools, but was at the last one for all of junior and senior years: a working-class high school where a majority of kids spoke something other than English at home. (Honors English, junior year, consisted mostly of spelling and vocabulary tests.) Most of my classmates did not continue to any two- or four-year college. I might have averaged an hour a week on homework; certainly not more than two.

Because various things worked out, I had my choice of colleges. Turned down Stanford and Caltech for an Ivy that had a program intended to get us through undergrad in three years, and a doctorate in another three; and started as a physics major, despite a limited background in math (and in physics itself). Combine that with a limited work ethic/habit (aka laziness) and zero maturity, and college turned out to be a rocky road.

It was way easier to get laid in college.