transitions

I was just thinking the other day how new situations can really cause people to adapt and change. Not necessarily changing for either the worse for the better, but changing because they become aware of new things. It seems to be most pronounced when people move up academically (ie. middle school to high school and high school to college). The easiest example of this is not actually academics, but the armed forces. People go in a lot different then they come out; they've learned new things and experienced a lot of different, impacting scenarios.
If we think hard enough I believe that we can all remember that we were much different freshman year of high school and college then we were senior year. High school freshmen learn that homework is no longer taking a map home and coloring it. Kids also must lose that middle school awkwardness and playfulness in order to deal with things that are harder both academically and socially. School gets progressively harder each year making last years homework load seem like a breeze. Same with friends and the social situation also. Kids are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be; all while dealing with the other hundreds of kids in their class dealing with the same thing. From personal experience I can tell you that my little freshman self was a load different than myself senior year. With the assistance of the people at Krew the changes were mostly for the better.
The college transition, I believe, will be the harder one. Because at least when kids are going from 8th to 9th grade the only major thing that is changing in their lives is their school. As opposed to the college transition where if you're going out of town it's a 100% percent change. New town, new people, new home, and just a new life away from the safety of home and life long friends. It's not like the high school transition where it's going from socially awkward to socially acceptable. It's going from being a kid to being thrown into life on your own with your own rules being set for yourself. The good thing about the college transition is that you already have your social skills established and (at least I'm hoping that) most people on campus have figured out that being drama queens doesn't really get you very far.
The difference for me personally is that when I was a freshman in high school I didn't know about the transition and therefore didn't worry about the outcome. As opposed to now where I know for a fact that I'm gonna change. My christian bubble of a life has not helped me in this respect. It's going to be a big difference between my private christian high school to my 30,000 student, public, state school. I'm fully expecting to come out more culturally aware and be more mature about life and the world. I guess we'll just wait and see what happens.