We made many important decisions about our classes, friends, and future, and sometimes made mistakes, but that was all right because we learned that the college experience is really about living by the choices we make. Many of us quickly found that our college courses were much more demanding than our high school courses. A lot more responsibility was placed on our shoulders to learn the course material. In my Chem 223 class, the lectures have nothing to do with homework and quizzes. Facts and key terms are no longer being drilled into our heads every day like they were in high school.
College is a different situation altogether.
Missing one day here is like missing a half a week of high school. Since nobody is looking over our shoulders anymore, there is a dangerous tendency for us to find new and innovative ways to avoid responsibility. We're constantly tempted from a variety of fun things to do ranging from frat parties to paper airplane flying, which can often become a bitter, bloody contest of brains and guts, especially among engineers. The danger of falling behind was the hardest lesson to learn, especially for those of us who unwisely exercised our constitutional right to sleep in one time too many. If you fall behind, it takes a lot of motivation and willpower to catch up.