While one may never be fully prepared for college, there are a multitude of factors that play into the preparation process. Much of that process can be accredited to the high school experience, which poses the multi-faceted question: how well has SHS prepared its students for college?

From an academic standpoint, Abby Schill, class of 2018 and junior at Dartmouth College, said that the broad course opportunities offered at SHS benefited her.

“Being able to take classes that weren’t just your standard core curriculum classes helped me develop different perspectives on important issues,” Schill said. “And also a lot of teachers do a really good job at connecting real world events to what we’re talking about in class, which I found my professors do all the time.”

One thing that Schill was not prepared for was finding motivation to complete her assignments when she was expected to work more independently.

“Lots of my professors would assign readings and there was never a reading quiz ever associated with them,” Schill said. “It was just expected that I would read them and understand them coming to the next class. And it was hard at first to motivate myself to actually do that when there wasn’t a specific grade attached or anyone really coaching me through that process.”

Apart from teaching styles, there is also a competitive element that comes into play. Aaron Wilder, class of 2019 and sophomore at Howard University, notes that the competitive nature of academics at SHS helped him adjust in college.

“It definitely taught me how to work in a very academically rigorous environment because Shorewood is very competitive,” Wilder said. “And then going to Howard where it is very academically competitive, I definitely got a good sense of what it’s like to work in that type of environment.”

Schill said that college is much more competitive than high school.

“I was really nervous about … being in an environment that, from the outside and also from the inside, feels a lot more competitive than high school ever was,” Schill said. “I think that part of it comes from the fact that everyone who goes there knows that [Dartmouth is] an Ivy League and it’s prestigious. So that kind of drives some sort of competitiveness.”

Some students were underwhelmed by the workload in college compared to high school.

“I thought it was going to be a lot harder. I thought it was going to be like homework every single day. And it can be as heavy at times, but it’s not as bad [or] as scary as teachers made it seem,” Wilder said. “I think because I spent some long nights studying for AP courses and when I got to college and didn’t have to study that hard for some courses, I was like ‘maybe this is not as stressful.’”

According to Colin Kenney, class of 2020 and freshman at Lakeland University, the workload is difficult but manageable.

“There’s definitely a lot more work than high school, but your classes are staggered a little bit,” Kenney said. “So if your class is on Tuesday, most likely your next one will be on Thursday. And usually other classes will go Monday, Wednesday, Friday … but you definitely have to put in a lot more effort.”

Each student agrees that the key to handling the workload is managing time, which was also one of the biggest hurdles in their experience.

“I think the [most important] thing was managing time once you get to college because there’s so much you need to be doing,” Wilder said. “And you’re grown, so you have to figure out how to do stuff on your own time. Nobody’s going to wake you up and tell you to get to class.”

Schill learned some of her time management skills from the open campus at SHS.

“Managing time at lunch and managing time during free periods … definitely are skills that I rely on heavily that I developed at Shorewood,” Schill said.

Students also have to adjust to being independent.

“The biggest challenge for me personally was adjusting to not living with my parents and my family,” Schill said. “Just living with myself and having to do some of the mundane activities like figure out when I was going to eat meals and do my own laundry and things like that was the biggest transition for me, especially at the beginning.”

Wilder had a unique experience in his transition from high school to college. Going from Shorewood, a predominantly white school, to Howard, a Historically Black College or University (HBCU), Wilder saw a dramatic change, both socially and academically.

“Because Howard is an HBCU, it was completely different. It was a little bit of a culture shock getting used to being around majority Black faces,” Wilder said. “At Shorewood, we didn’t have a whole lot of Black teachers, especially Black core-class teachers … going to Howard and having my first ever Black teacher was interesting. I learned a lot when I left Shorewood — about myself and definitely what it means to be Black.”

Students feel like there are some aspects of college that a high school experience cannot prepare them for.

“I don’t think I was really unequipped with anything that Shorewood could have had any control over,” Wilder said. “I think they did their best to try to transition their students into the college experience. But there’s only so much an educational experience can do to get you prepared.”

“I think that there definitely were times where I felt completely unprepared, but I also think that it’s kind of impossible to completely prepare you to go to college,” Schill said. “But once you get over that bump, you see the pieces come together.”