Responsibility of choices in college however, falls squarely onto the students’ shoulders. The student not the government decides which career path that they should take. There are still guidelines as to what classes combined together warrant a degree, but it is completely the students’ choice on if they take those classes. If a student wants to be a doctor, they will sign up for and take all the required courses for that field of study. If they chose to miss class it is them, not the parent who will be responsible to make sure that they are in good standing with the professor. A student also has a variety of ways in which they choose to attend class. For example a student can attend English 1010, one or two days a week, online, in the evenings or a combination of all three. Assuming the student is of legal age they can chose to stay out all night with friends and perhaps not even return to the dorm. The consequences of their choices are far greater while in college and the impact of those choices weigh far heavier than those that are entrusted to a student while in high school. The assumption is that in college one is more mature and has the ability to make responsible decisions. Traditionally in high school a student will attend the school that they are zoned for based on the state, city and town they live in. A student can apply for exceptions, however generally speaking he or she will attend the school that the city has zoned them for. So the first day of class students are sitting among friends whom they’ve known as long as they’ve lived in the area. There is a sense of familiarity, not necessarily with the new grade they are entering, but it is with those that are entering in with them. Sometimes, especially in small town America, the chances of a student attending high school with the same group of kids they attended kindergarten with is a very real probability. There is a level of comfort between classmates and the daily routine. It is familiar and reassuring.
In college, depending on the choices that a student made, they could be in a city or even larger a state totally different from that they grew up in. In fact one could choose to attend college on an entirely different continent. There will be new faces, from all walks of life, and just like the student, they too can be from different cities, states, or countries.