It's only until you leave high school that you see high school and everything about it differently. You see your fellow classmates completely change, you experience different learning environments, if you go onto higher education, and high school suddently starts to feel like a nostalgic period of your life that you start to miss.
The following are what I've noticed and/or learnt since leaving high school. :)
1. You don't need to do homework
I'm not saying you shouldn't do homework, the whole point of it is to expand your knowledge and to help you memorise what you've been taught otherwise there would be no point in teaching you, but you technically don't need to do homework. Unlike college or university, you can't be dropped from high school due to lack of work because you're legally required to be there. In higher education, all work you are given is compulsory for you to complete the course which is why it's called "coursework". Despite it being more important and compulsory in higher education, tutors are more laid back because at that point, your education is in your hands and you chose to do the course so it's your decision to fail or pass. Your teachers get angry when you don't do your homework because they want you to do your best so you have the means to go onto higher education if you wanted to. So homework isn't entirely unnecessary and it's not compulsory, like I thought it was. If you want to succeed in education, I recommend you do homework.
2. The popularity contest ends at the school gates
You can't deny that high school is a popularity contest of some sort. Every class is assorted into ranks that seem to assemble themselves naturally over time. When you're in high school, that's all you know and the popularity contest is what students are usually preoccupied about. It's easy to feel like this popularity contest exists in every part of life, which it does in a sense, but not as obviously or as intensely as in high school. The vast majority of adults treat others as equals and you will often feel like an equal, not inferior or out of place like you may feel you are now. Literally, the day you leave high school, the hierarchy system you've come to know immediately starts to dissipate. You often see the nerds having more of a party life and having more friends, than the "popular" ones in high school. Don't let this popularity contest get to you, remember that the outside, adult world is a lot different in that sense!
3. Teachers don't know everything
I believe we often assume our teachers know everything, because... well, they're teaching us everything! Despite their confidence, sometimes teachers teach things they're not fully knowledgeable of or are unsure of, yet we often take every word they say as fact. As I've learnt in college, tutors are a lot more laid back and often show their mistakes and are usually honest about their capabilities. High school teachers can't be much different, though they don't show it because high school students are a lot crueller. I only really observed this situation in college. My Maths teacher actually used to hate Maths but somehow ended up being a teacher of it, but he's also an English teacher... that makes regular spelling mistakes! They're human too. They make mistakes, they forget things, they have emotions and they're just trying to make a living, yet some students give them an unnecessarily hard time.
If your teacher suddenly starts acting strange, stumbling over their words or stuttering, it's probably because they're not entirely sure of what they're teaching or they're just having a brain fog; give them a break!
4. Nothing really matters
Aside from your final grades and qualifications that you will be taking with you for the rest of your life, nothing else really matters when you leave high school. That F you got in a history revision test won't matter, that person in your class that always teased you won't matter (you'll probably never see them again) and the teacher that seems to pick on you all the time won't matter. What really matters is the experience and enjoying it because believe it or not, you will miss it and they are years of your life you can never get back or repeat. The years go by insanely quickly so make the most of all the good you experience so you have more good memories to reminisce over.
What was your experience after leaving highschool; did a lot change?
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