By: Buntheng LIM

Being an outstanding student in high-school doesn’t guarantee that you are ready for college. It is because studying in high-school is totally different from studying in college. Due to this fact, it is said that high-school doesn’t prepare you for college. To help you to address this problem, here are the warning signs:

You don’t like to read

In high school, reading books irks you so much due to your having a short attention span, which makes it hard for you to concentrate on reading books. Plus, you don’t develop a habit of reading books or online articles. This means when free, you pick up video games or hang out with friends rather than spending time reading books. This habit is disadvantageous because college requires you to read a lot.

You depend on your teachers

In high school, when you hear something that sparks your curiosity, you will ask your teacher immediately; and your teachers will praise you for doing so. Yet, in college, it is different: you have to help yourself first meaning you have to read about it a few times if you want to understand something; and if you still don’t get it, this is the time to ask your teachers. From my personal experience, my American professor once scolded me for being lazy when I asked him without reading anything related to what I wanted to know.

You only study what is taught in school

You think doing great in what is taught in school is good enough for your college life. Thus, your goal is to ace all your exams, so you take no liberty in learning something new outside your textbooks. However, knowing what has been taught in school is good, but it is not the best. Everything is constantly developing, which also includes knowledge. That indicates that what we learn in school is somehow out of date. Personally, I met an English professor who said, “Teaching students in Cambodia is easy. All you have to do is to be a little bit ahead of them [because they barely question things outside their textbooks or they don’t question at all.”

You don’t know the secondary language

In high school, everything is taught in Khmer, so that shouldn’t be a problem for the students. Thus, you only focus on your school curriculums rather than spending time studying the secondary language. However, everything taught in college is taken from other countries. This implies that our resources are written in other languages—mostly English. So, being multilingual helps you a lot in college.  

You lack technical skills

By technical skills, I refer to the abilities to use technology such as email or other Microsoft office applications. High school doesn’t teach us that stuff; however, in college, you are expected to be able to work with them efficiently. From my personal experience, I didn’t know how to use Microsoft Excel, so I had a problem in my accounting class as my teacher gave me an assignment without bothering to ask if I knew how to use Microsoft Excel.

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