Life

13 Things You'll Miss About School When You're In College

Most of us spend the majority of our school days dying to leave and get out into the real world and at first, it's great. No rules, no boundaries, no nagging. But after a while nostalgia sets in and you'll be looking back on your school days with rose tinted glasses. Here's what you'll miss about school when you start college. Honestly.

1) Being Woken Up Every Morning

No, really. This was actually a great thing. Yes, I resented the fact that my mother woke me up every morning for 14 years by screaming up at me, but looking back, if she had been there to do so for all of my missed (sorry) 9am lectures, things would have gone a lot more swimmingly.

2) Being Driven In/ Getting A Paid Bus Ticket

Dearest parents, if you'd like to resume being my personal, daily chauffeur, then I would spend a lot more time in college and a lot less time in bed watching the latest 'must see' series from start to finish. Failing that, a prepaid bus ticket would be the next best thing. After all, when the choice is between eating lunch and paying for the bus, we all know who the clear winner is.

3) Shorter Days

Remember the days of 9-3.30? I barely do, to be honest. They are now nothing more than a vague and wonderful memory. The fact that we used to consider roughly a six hour day to be long is nothing but a joke. Appreciate this piss take now because soon, you'll be working twelve hour shifts and crying inside.

4) Teachers

Bear with me here. There are obviously some teachers that you'd happily run over in a four by four. The type of ones who put you down at every God given opportunity and believed that you'd amount to nothing more than a bum. Well who's had the last laugh now? Now, we're bums who are paying for the privilege of being a bum. Also known as being a student. Still though, there are some teachers who gave a shit, who actually believed in you and they're the ones that you'll miss when faced with yet another lecturer to whom you are nothing but a number.

5) School Friends

There's such a comfort in seeing the same people day in day out for five or six years, that you won't even realise until you leave them behind and head for pastures new. Of course making new friends is a vital part of life and you shall make great friends, but that doesn't make moving on any easier. Just be safe in the knowledge that great friendship takes more than a little distance to break.

6) Your Uniform

Remember the days of getting up and having to put zero thought into what you're going to wear? They were fantastic. Of course everyone mouths off about having to don a shit uniform but really, we all loved the thoughtlessness behind it.

7) Weekends

The thing about being in school was that weekends were generally yours for the taking. Friday evenings at 3.30, you were free, free as a bird. Once you got that necessary homework load off your chest, you had two and a half full days of freedom and you could fill it with whatever you liked. Usually food, alcohol and television. Now that you're in college, you're probably spending your entire weekend working your arse off to earn enough to go out three times during the week. The week is your weekend now.

8) Knowing The Place Like The Back Of Your Hand

Unless you went to school in Hogwarts, most school buildings tended to be quite small in size. A hell of a lot smaller, in fact. You're going from being able to get from one side of the building to the next in 2 minute,s to spending twenty minutes jogging around in a sweat, watching the clock anxiously. Google maps will be your new, most trusted friend.

9) No Group Projects

Group projects, the bane of every college students life. Try as you might, there's always going to be that one fool who contributes nothing but annoyance and excuses. We didn't have this problem in school. Oh no sir, there it was every man for himself and you had nobody to let down other than, well you.

10) Daily Fights

This one obviously depends on the type of school that you went to. If you went to one like mine however, then the main source of entertainment was a good fight. Usually scheduled in around lunch time every day. Sadly there's no such joy in college, where the only fights you'll witness are between knobs figthing verbally over the last of the salads in the restaurant.  Not really the same thing, is it.

11) No Society Joining Harassment

Back in school everyone pretended to hate being there, so to form societies or any of that crap would be deemed sad beyond belief. Sadly, this mantra doesn't translate into college life, where, on attempting to walk through the place during election week you'll be harassed from every possible angle. Bring back lack of spirit, I say.

12) The 'Rebels'

Every school had some of these bad boys (or girls.) They attended school purely to show us all how little of a shit they gave. Between expulsions, detentions and smoking out under the trees though, we rarely actually got to see them. How tragic a loss for us. They don't really exist in college, as most of them couldn't think of anything more horrific than spending another four years in school. *Shudder*

13) Not Being Hungover In Class

You'll get to a stage in college where your hangover days will far outnumber your non hungover days. You'll get to a stage where sitting in class with a hangover is the most natural thing in the world. Remember school days where the only thing distracting you from learning was a large sense of boredom and a hatred of whatever subject it was that you were being forced to sit through. Ah, memories.

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Alison decided to follow a sensible career route and chose to study Media. She happens to think of herself as a kind of Irish Beyonce after four Coronas, which usually results in her being deserted on the dance-floor by her loving friends. Her horrifically short attention span seeps into many aspects of her life, resulting in her half hearing important facts and hating people who walk at a leisurely pace.