Transitions

I remember feeling very nervous about entering highschool after the safety of primary school. I remember having a talk from some highschool students about what life was like there and listening to them with mixture of anxiety and excitement. It seemed that everything would change and I would be the only one not able to cope with it. During adolescence it is so important to belong, I think one of the most important things was knowing that my friends would be going to the same school, but it was scary to think of all the new people I would encounter and whether they would like me and vice versa. I think the other part that was interesting was thinking about how I would organise myself with all the different subjects and finding my way around a huge new campus. The same feelings of anxiety and excitement were there when I left highschool to go to university but there was also a huge sense of the freedom from highschool and all the social pressures that were a part of life there (as well as academic ones). It will be interesting to compare and contrast the two different developmental stages and see which of my intellectual, social and psychological assets were in place and which were quick / slow to developed during those times.