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Originally Posted by Matt Adams
As a heads up, which I think every college student on these boards will echo... but no matter how fantastic your high school was... it's nothing compared to college. Period.
Hard work and good time management skills are great assets, but they're not going to make it so you won't have to work hard, or even work significantly less. I myself came into college with nearly 32 credits... thinking things wouldn't be so bad.
The AP classes in high school just replace the easy, introductory classes in college where a lot of help is provided for freshman. What makes college what it is, is the projects that require 80 hours of group work, not the 4 hours of calc homework you do each week. I too took Diff Eq as a freshman, and it was a big reality check for me. Instead of getting the whole college environment gradually set in, you're set up in classes with a lot of non-freshman who know a lot of the tricks of the trade, and you're behind the eight ball sometimes... be ready, and good luck!
Matt
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I transferred in about half that number of APs, and overloaded my schedule the first three years in University. I'd have to say my highschool prepared me extremely well, and I'm probably the exception in saying my 4 years of university were less difficult than my 4 years of highschool, but that isn't to say I disagree with what you're saying.
Especially the last paragraph in "getting the whole college environment gradually set in" as opposed to baptism by fire and being left behind.
If you're an overachiever, like most FIRST students are, there is a fair amount of potential to get burned by this. Believe it or not, my solution was to join a fraternity. I had no intention of doing so initially, but I scoped out greek life, and found the fraternity that worked the hardest, and got the best grades... and they also happend to be the fraternity that partied the hardest too, so it was a match made in heaven =).
As a Freshman, I was in mostly sophmore classes, as a sophomore, I was in junior and senior level classes. I always had upperclassmen fraternity brothers in all my classes to help me along the way - it was great because I don't think I could've even MET upperclassmen students while living in the dorms, let alone become good enough friends that I could depend on them and vice-versa.
Being the lone freshmen in a sophmore class SUCKS, especially when everyone knows each other already, and you get stuck with the dregs in the form of a craptacular lab-partner. But, I was never stuck with a weak lab partner, or with terrible group members since a fraternity brother was always there. Nor were there any classes or professors that a fraternity brother hadn't already seen before. There were no surprises... ever
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It seems a little backwards, but the fraternity really made it possible to be an academic over-achiever at my university. It's like having the deck stacked in your favour of being guaranteed the smartest lab partners and groups, no matter how far ahead in the field you are. Find yourself in a 200, 300 or 400 level class as a freshmen? No problem... I guess just as long as you pick the right fraternity =).