Up to this point, now in senior year in high-school, I've been sleeping a little later in my normal schedule. I went from sleeping around 1 AM to almost 3 AM, and it's taking a toll on my health and morning schedule. I hope to fix this soon once both breaks (Thanksgiving and Winter) roll around this semester, but for those who have college experience, how's your schedule like? How busy is it really? Is it like high-school where the amount of time you spend on homework is dependent on the level of difficulty your classes are? And if possible, can I see a therapist in the future when I'm in college?

I sound foolish, but I worry about my overall health and sanity rather than grades, not that I don't care for them at all, my health is one of my main priorities since I sometimes neglect it.

[Perna]

Things can be a little harder in college as you have to walk so far to each of your classes, it's not like you are "at school" for the day and do one class after another, just down the hall, etc. Depending on your schedule, there are down times/days, heavier and lighter days and getting use to the new pattern can be difficult. Too, you generally only go to a certain class 2-3 times a week, not all 5 days and the time you are in class for each is longer. You get to decide whether to go to a class or not (I rarely went to math class, it was across the campus, almost a mile from my dorm and earlier in the morning than I liked) and that has an affect on your grades/studying too.

But I went to a large university. If you start at a community college or smaller college, the distances might not be as bad and they might have programs where they group things better, where things are more predictable and not so dependent on your own wishes in the matter. Some courses can require attendance/take roll call and mark you off if you don't go which might be helpful or make you resentful, I don't know.

The biggest problem I see for you is that things are not blocked out so you go-to-school-come-home-and-study. With different courses on different days and times and independent of all the other courses it can be easy to go to class on Monday and think, since you have until Wednesday before you go again or you have 3 weeks until a quiz, etc. that you have plenty of time to study when, in reality, you often can be assigned 100 pages to read at a time and reading 100 technical pages between Monday and Wednesday for only one course when you have 2-3 other courses that day and a couple you have to prepare for on Tuesday, etc., the amount of reading can really get one. I always had trouble sitting there and taking intense notes for an hour and a half and then also being expected to read so much; the lectures/note taking are intense, lecture classes like you often have the first couple years are large and there's not much interaction (or, like for math and science, you also have a "lab" for interaction/doing homework problems) and all I wanted to do was relax after that, not worry about the "next" session and all that reading in between. If you are a real worrier and intense worker, I could see being stressed that there is too much work and trying to study all the time instead of taking time to do other things and be part of the whole experience. Tunnel vision could be just as bad as my lackadaisical attitude and stressing about having not studied enough.

[JJORANGE]

I"m in my second year and honestly I found High School worse. It all depends on what classes you take and how many of course but in general its not so bad. For me the first semester was the worse as I took 5 courses. It wasn't until after did I realize that I wasn't required to follow the program guide to a T. You can take 2 or 3 courses. You can take 1 if that's all you want to do. It may take you another year but in the end if its messing up your life it's not worth it. I was suppose to be done my degree in April 2016 but I won't be graduating until Dec, and that's fine. Between work, school and having a social life taking longer to complete it is worth it.

[coldwut]

It depends on the classes you take. The good thing is that you can schedule your classes to be later in the day. Also, you don't have to take 7 or 8 classes like you do in high school. If you want to be a full time student you have to have 12 hours of class a week, or 4 classes.
You can also look at your schedule and read or work ahead of time.

During midterms and finals, students don't get that much sleep.