School's over, now what? Your Guide to starting Sixth Form College (the things no one tells you)
This article was written by current TRC student Kelsey Cunnah from a student perspective!
When people talk about starting college, they always love to mention the newfound freedom and how “you’re treated more like an adult.” And yes, both of those things might be true but there is also a whole other side that rarely gets mentioned. If you’re about to make the leap from secondary school to college, it helps to sometimes hear the honest truth, not to scare you but because sometimes being real is more useful.
You might struggle/find all the freedom overwhelming
No uniform, shorter days and free periods sound amazing, right? At first, they feel like it but sooner or later you’ll realise that with all the freedom comes the responsibility of remembering where you’re meant to be, managing your own time, planning your revision and staying motivated without anyone pushing you to get revision and homework done. This can feel confusing and even overwhelming. The good thing though is that you’re not alone feeling like that. Most students feel this way at the beginning and it’s a skill that you will build up over time as you learn how to balance everything. And don’t stress too much about using every free period for revision, it’s perfectly fine to take breaks and spend time with your friends during them (I definitely did that more than I should have done in year 12… but let’s keep that between us!)
It’s easy to fall behind (and harder to catch up)
In secondary school, teachers stay on top of reminding you about deadlines and homework. But in college? Not so much. Usually, if you don’t get something done, that’s on you. When you miss deadlines for tasks, the work will slowly start to pile up: you miss one wider reading task here and another unfinished task there and before you know it, you’re behind on content which may lower your grade. (Yes, in some subjects there is so much material that it is set as homework!) From my personal experience, I know that when it came time to revise for one of my subjects, my understanding of the content wasn’t vivid as I hadn’t finished the homework piece nor made proper revision resources.
You might not become friends with people straight away
I know from that subheading; it seems scary due to the weird pressure there is at the start of the academic year to instantly make new friends or stay friends with your old ones from secondary school. But the truth is, whichever path you take it’s completely okay as most of the time, your college friends will be different to the ones you had before, because you meet new people and will start talking to them. A few days in, it might feel like everyone already knows each other and has their friend group sorted but realistically, most people are still figuring things out, just like you.
Speaking from experience, as an introvert I really struggled to make friends at first. I started off hanging about with an already established friend group that included people from my secondary school, but they never made me feel as part of the group. By October, I stopped spending time with them and instead started spending time with a girl I’d met on the first day at student services, and we bonded over the fact we used the same tote bag (a Harry Styles “Love On Tour” bag). Eventually though, you will find your people and the important thing to remember with that is: there’s no rush.
Choosing what to wear can be weirdly stressful
Currently, you think you’ll love not wearing a uniform… until it’s a month into the college year and you have no idea what to wear as what used to be an automatic decision, is now suddenly a decision that you must think about every morning. You may overthink it at the start of the year, worrying about looking too dressed up or too casual, but the further you get into the year, the less you will overthink it. And don’t be surprised every so often if you find yourself missing how easy having a uniform was.
The jump in workload may be more than you think
Doing three or four subjects at A-Level sounds easier than doing nine or ten at GCSE but the reality is that you go deeper into content. The difficulty of your work will increase, as well as the answers you will be writing and the expectations put on you. Some people will adapt easily to the jump and others won’t adapt so easily, and that’s okay as personally I found the jump more difficult to adapt to, but I eventually got there (with having support from staff in college).
Final thoughts
Going to college once finishing secondary school is exciting and a big change in your life. But just remember that if you feel overwhelmed and you believe that you’re behind and failing in comparison to people in your year, I can tell you that you’re really not and that you’re just figuring it all out just like everyone else, but at your own pace.