5 Things You Need to Know Before Starting College

 “Go to college, get a good paying job, better your future, it’s only four years of your life, college life is one big party, college will be the best days of your life.” These are all things we’re told before starting our college career. No one tells us the frustrations and challenges we’ll face along the way.

1.       There will be nights you don’t sleep. No, not because someone is throwing an awesome party, although there will be some of those too. Because you have deadlines to meet and most professors don’t except late work like you’re used to in high school.

2.       You need to take 15-16 credit hours a semester to graduate in four years. For me, this has been my biggest frustration because my advisor didn’t inform me of this. I thought since I was enrolled full time (12 hours) that I would graduate on time so now I’m graduating a semester later than I planned on.

3.       You will most likely be more broke than ever before. My freshman year I was working around 35 hours a week which was good money. My grades suffered though. My sophomore year I was in a situation that allowed me not to have a job and focus solely on my school work. I made straight A’s. Now I’m having to find a balance between work and school. I work around 25 hours a week which is just enough to pay my bills so I’m living paycheck to paycheck. This brings me to my next point.

4.       FASFA assumes your parents help you with college if you have to file as a dependent. Last year my parents made a good amount of money but they don’t help me financially with school. They have five other children living at home still. Just because they make a certain amount of money doesn’t mean your parents help pay for school. This has been my biggest struggle because this year my loans weren’t enough to cover the cost of tuition for 12 credit hours. I’m only enrolled in 9 so I’ll have to take summer courses to make up for the hours I’m not taking now.

5. Depending on your major you could have at least 25 hours of electives. Electives are a good way to expand on different subjects within your major. When you have so many elective hours you need to take in order to graduate it feels like the university is scamming you of money. Even after I major and then minor in two subjects, I’ll have 12 more hours I need to do something with. It’s a bit ridiculous.  

With all that being said, yes, go to college and better your life. It’s worth the challenges, frustrations and struggles I’ve encountered so far within the academic process of getting a higher education. I think I would much rather struggle for four or five years than the rest of my life trying to find a job that pays more than minimum wage.