Graduating high school is a stepping stone in life, but what comes after? For many, college is the next big step, and a daunting one at that. There are hundreds of colleges across the nation, so how would one decide which to attend? What should be anticipated in the college life?

Jose Guadalupe Juarez Estrada graduated from Kennedy in 2018 and is now enrolled at Kirkwood. Juarez said that the key to a successful high school career is to study, pay attention, and take advantage of SMART Time for extra help. He believes the path to a prosperous college career is quite similar to high school, there’s just more studying involved, which he thinks is about an extra two hours.

Money is a crucial deciding factor when it comes to college, and that’s how Juarez decided to enroll at Kirkwood.

“It’s a cheaper option. College is getting so expensive you really have to ask yourself ‘is it worth it?’” Juarez said.

When determining what college to go to, Juarez advises to look for scholarships that apply to that school, what it’s known for, and what it can offer students.

Taylor (Kilgore) Fagersten graduated  from Kennedy in 2012 and went out of state to attend BYU-Idaho. She thinks the experience allowed her to get away from home and become her own person, which made her feel like she was truly growing up.

“Definitely go. You expose yourself to new people and learn what life is like outside of what you’re used to,” Fagersten said.

Living in a dorm with three roommates didn’t prove to be a problem for Fagersten, as she believes she was fortunate to have such good roommates. Resolving arguments didn’t prove to be a problem amongst the roommates.

“Just remember that everyone has a different background, and just be willing to talk it through,” Fagersten said.

To Juarez, socializing in college is basically the same as in high school, while Fagersten deems the experience to be quite different. Being in an out-of-state college, she had to be surrounded by new people, and got to learn new social skills.

Juarez describes the hardest part of college being to keep track of things, such as checking emails.

“You just have to check up on it (email) regularly and I never did that, so sometimes I got in trouble,” Juarez said.

Meanwhile, Fagersten declares procrastination was her biggest trial. She thinks that putting things off would lead to all-nighters, so she advises to plan out work and when to do it to avoid too much stress.

Both Juarez and Fagersten present two vastly different examples of what college life could lead to. To decide for oneself what path to take, financial situations and desired experiences should be taken into consideration.