There are so many resources at your disposal in college. It’s humbling to think about all the people who are invested in your success for each course. Going to office hours and getting personal, specific explanations of difficult concepts is easily the biggest advantage in college. Many of my AP classes in high school would have been much easier if I had access to teaching assistants and office hours.
High school kids: be aware that college will be more difficult conceptually and organizationally than high school, but also realize that there are lots of resources available to you.
@yourmomma , I definitely agree, but as a student who was often in huge classes in high school, I was very conscious of the other demands on my teachers and felt guilty about asking for help outside the classroom. In college, office hours are pre-scheduled, so I don’t feel like I am burdening the professor by coming in to ask a question. This experience may not apply to everyone, though.
AP classes are not just like college. In high school, there are daily assignments, attendance requirements, fire drills, snow days, ‘binder checks’ in APUSH. In college, they don’t care if you have a binder or not, if you skip class, if you have a dentist appointment. There are different resources.
I found AP classes really different from college classes in other ways, too. No one ever read the textbook, myself included, and there seemed to be a constant barrage of stressful assignments that made it difficult to understand simple material. In college, everyone reads the textbook and being faced with less busywork means that classes are easier and things make more sense, even though the content is more difficult.