I am absolutely terrified of the academic difficulty of College. I have like a 3.5 gpa or something like that and I go to a great school so I know getting in won’t be a problem, but I am terrified of the workload. I am terrified of writing 5 page essays, because I can barely finish two sometimes and I’m afraid of running out of ideas.
You’re not alone in how you feel. Many, many people past and present have had the same worries about attending college but you can do it. Maintain good time management, go to class, employ your study skills and use the resources available to you. Today colleges all have writing centers, tutors, and help sessions. Remember every year you are maturing and developing. You’ve been at a competitive high school and done well. You are prepared.
Thank you, I appreciate it, I just don’t trust myself, I feel like I’m lazy and I don’t want to be. I am at a collage preparatory catholic school, so maybe I’ll be used to the work load.
A lot of colleges have living learning communities. My D lived in one her freshman year. What we found is a high degree of collaboration and support within the LLC. There were 56 students and two mentor’s that made up hers which on the small side. Most of the time the students would hang out in the common lounges of the LLC and work on papers and study. If someone was stuck the others were there to help bounce ideas against one another. You may want to look at LLC’s where you plan to go and see if there is one that interest you to live in for that first year. For many in my D’s LLC it helped greatly with the transition to college, especially from those that weren’t quite as prepared coming out of high school.
Time management and longer essays are two of the things that many students struggle with in the transition to college- but the biggest mistakes are not recognizing the speed at which college moves and being too slow/proud to ask for help. As @empireapple suggested, there are many, many resources at every single college/university- writing centers, subject-specific help sessions, office hours for TAs & Profs: use them early & often. Work ahead (do the reading before class, for example). You will have lots of overlapping deadlines - work ahead to your own deadlines so you don’t get to the night before 2 papers and 2 midterms and crash and burn.
And yes, a good prep school should have you ready by the time you get there 