Give it a year. You'll want to come back. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. There won't be any burning desire to re-enter the clustered cogs of the public education system. However, you'll probably miss certain aspects of it.



When it comes down to it, high school and university are fundamentally different experiences, each with their own high and low points. While college and university are definitely a step up from high school, there are definitely some things you'll miss from your secondary school days. Here are 4 of them:

1) Shared Lunch Period

Even if your high school employed the multiple lunch period system, there was still that cafeteria clique who you saw everyday.

Whether you stayed in school and ate the mystery meat hamburgers or you chose to go on an epic adventure to the mall food court, you knew that your lunch period buddies had your back.

2) The ISP

Introduced somewhere around the Grade 10-11 period was the Independent Student Project, or ISU. However this grand title was a misnomer; ISU's were little more than glorified art projects. Bristol boards, Plaster of Paris, super-glue, wood; all of these materials were key parts of the ISU experience.

Unless you're in an architecture or industrial design program, you'll have to retire your macram once and for all.

3) Socializing

People don't go to high school for 8:30 A.M. each and every morning to listen to the riveting morning announcements; they come to socialize.

High schools acted as a social hub for the entire neighbourhood. Even people who weren't enrolled in a particular high school still managed to sneak in.

By contrast, university campuses are usually way too large for any type of social cohesion; you're lucky if you see three or four people you know a day, and usually while you're all on your way to class. Saved By the Bell it ain't.

4) High School Teachers

While they may not have been your best friends in high school, it takes university to make you realize just how cool your high school teachers were.

If you were lucky, you had a few that you liked. If you were really lucky, you had some that really inspired you to do well. In many ways high school is a much more personal experience than university, which is a lot more professional in nature.