Welcome to Gaia! ::

Where do you plan on going?

I've been in college for a few years and I like it. Right now I'm in a high rated community college and working towards an associates. After that I'm going to good 4 yr college. My suggestion to you is get lots of scholarships if you can, if you can't try a community college first. If you get an associates degree it will lock those credit hours you earned when you transfer later. If you can try to find a college that caters specificly towards the major you are working for. Try asking around for good schools if you know any teachers or professors. As for applying make sure your high school sends a final transcript. Mine didn't and gave me some problems at first, I had to go back and tell them to do it right.

As for the difficulty of the courses.... it depends on the school and professor. For the most part it is very similar to any advanced courses you may have taken in high school. I like college a lot and have learned much. If you have any more questions let me know.

It helps if you reasearch a good community college, I am lucky to live by one of the top rated ones.

Calvin, huh? Cool. I hope you've been able to get this straight in your head before now; I'm a little late with the pickup here, it being my first day of classes and all... but this is what I've learned.

Talk to the people in Admissions and Financial Aid as early as you can. The sooner they know you are serious about attending, the better. Visit those departments if you ever do tour the campus (good idea!!) and keep their phone numbers and postal addresses handy. Email addresses aren't bad to have around, either.

Scholarships and grants are GOOD. You don't have to pay them back, and there are plenty of them out there. Academic scholarships if you have good grades, talent scholarships if you're good at something, athletic scholarships if you play a sport well, ethnic scholarships if you qualify... the possibilities are endless. Keep your eyes open and fill out as many applications as you can.

Loans aren't as hot as the other two-- you have to pay them back. With interest. stare Hmph. But they aren't the end of the world. If you stay on top of your payments you shouldn't have much to worry about.

One more point about money-- fill out your FAFSA form early, if you plan to do so. Free federal money. What's not to love?

Don't just look into courses you want to take-- check out the academic programs offered by Calvin and base your decision on something you're interetsed in. If you want to major in something, you have to have a certain number of hours credited to your field-- and that can cramp your schedule if you don't plan ahead. If I were you, I'd take some of the gen-ed courses first, just to get your feet wet and see what the University has to offer. You might just find something that interests you biggrin .

Speaking of classes and credits, if you take Lithanus' advice and attend a community college for a while, and if you plan to transfer back to Calvin, be sure that your credits will transfer. I had two of my best classes dropped when I tried to transfer because I didn't realize that would happen. *glomps self on the head* Not so this semester. If you decide to go this route (it's cheaper, but more chaotic), be sure to talk to your academic advisor about what will transfer and what won't.

Ok, I'm done frying your brain with all of this. I just don't want you to have to deal with the same problems I did when I started school (and this past summer trying to get my transfers to work out). I hope it helps!!

Good luck! It will be a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun at the same time. If you have any more questions or even just someone to talk to feel free to pm me or any others willing to help. I'll be praying for you.