High School to College Writing

Dear High School Student,

When you enter your freshman year of college you will notice a lot of big changes in all of your classes and your writing.  Two major topics that Keith Hjortshoj writes about in his book The Transition to College Writing are (1) college work requires new kinds of motivation and self-discipline and (2) high school teachers are typically generalists while college teachers are specialists.

What Hjortshoj means by college work requires new kinds of motivation and self-discipline is that when you are in college you are paying for your education.  This means you are allowed to skip class as much as you want and not study.  Your grades can suffer, but you won't have your parents or teachers telling you that you need to motivate yourself, study, and go to class everyday.  When you go into class you have to motivate yourself not to sit in a lecture and doodle or fall asleep.  You will need to learn how to take proper notes and keep yourself not distracted.

Another topic that Hjortshoj brings up is that high school teachers are typically generalists while college teachers are specialists.  This means that high school teachers will know a little bit about each subject, but college professors and teachers are teaching one specific subject and went to school majoring specifically in that major.

Two transitions that I came up with are (1) you are given more opportunities to be independent and (2) you are able to make life long friends at college.  When you are at college you are given many chances to be independent.  This means that outside of classes you can make the decisions to go back home or to your dorm room and study or go out and party.  You no longer have your parents telling you what to do and are going to ground you if you make the wrong decisions.  The second topic is you are able to make life long friends at college.  You are able to experience many new things and events at college and what makes those experiences easier is having friends by your side.  Typically after high school you don't see too many people you went to school with, but at college your are with them everyday.