Everything that you'd experience in the whole course of your academic and social life in college would teach you the things that you need to know to go out into the big meat grinder: the real world. From the OrSem to your graduation day, you will always be taught to do things yourself and these things would always open a new door for you. They'd teach you not the theoretical aspect of life, but rather the application of these things. I remember my first shot with this lesson. When I registered for my first semester, I had no adult to supervise what I was doing. I was very nervous, because I was used to doing things like this with an adult---I was just tagging along. I had to rely on reading and listening to instructions said or posted by the RegCom staff, asking politely and smiling to people I didn't know. It was like a practical test for my Reading comprehension and GMRC and Values classes when I was in grade school and high school. When I was finally registered, all was done, and I was very proud of myself.

The spirit of independence is always expected to be imbibed in you in a university because aside from registering or enrolling yourself in school, there are a lot of aspects of your life in college that would require it. Take the simple act of commuting to school. Many, including me, find this relatively easy to do (though the fact that you'd encounter traffic, heat, rain and pollution outside is difficult to ignore), but I know people who have never ridden a jeep all their life. When college came, they had to do it in order to bring themselves to school. The joys of seeing places, meeting people, eating street food and even the dangers in the street is a whole new dimension for them. Though I knew how to commute, I have a ridden in a school bus for almost 12 years. I have seen a lot of aspects of the streets of Manila, but I admit that there a lot of things that I have yet to learn that really surprise. Take the blood-curling traffic in Katipunan for example. It never seems to dissipate because of the big volume of cars trying to fit themselves in the narrow road. I have experienced leaving my house an hour and a half before my class just to experience the bitter irony of ending up 10 minutes late all because of the damned traffic jam in the road just across my school.

In college, your whole world will probably revolve around your academics, as it is the very reason for being in school (duh! haha. :)). You're expected to attend your classes, like in high school, but there are stuff that might be new for freshmen. For example, for every subject, you'd go from one classroom to another. You'd have different teachers, and every one of them have their own set of rules, which are, of course, are based on the school's rules. Professors and instructors very rarely spoon feed, neither do they run after you when you miss a requirement or when you're failing. They also give you the freedom not to attend their classes (called 'cuts'), provided that you don't go over the maximum number of absences. They don't teach and talk a lot, and they expect you to have read or studied in advance a least. Also, you'd find that for your classes, you can choose your own professors and subjects, fix the whole lot of your schedule yourself and you could also choose to take extra units or less units for the semester. You can choose to get the difficult but challenging prof, or the easy-A prof, and same goes with the subjects. Freshmen are under the block system so they won't get to choose most of their classes and professors now, though. The closest thing they could get to what the upperclassmen are doing is choosing their own PE class. Imagine that, you could choose your own PE class now---the sport or discipline you want! How cool is that? Now that's totally different from high school.

But don't think that every thing screams academics here. There is the freedom of choosing your extra-curricular activities, such as joining an organization. There is definitely an org in Ateneo that would meet and feed your interests and talents, and you can choose to join it or not. You can choose to be org-less or org-full (meaning, joining more than one org) for the school year. You can choose to be an active member, or even go as far as elected for a leadership position in it.

As you've noticed, most of the things that are done here in college are fueled by independence and choice. But it's not always that. Remember that there always exists this thin line between being PLAIN independent and RESPONSIBLY independent.

There's this thing called the "Freshman Syndrome". This is a collection stereotypical stuff that freshmen tend to do and experience in their virgin year in college. Freshmen tend to be in small groups always, stick to their blocks and be noisy in school public areas. They are cheery and happy with the new experiences and friends that they have. They tend to explore and go around the school, and are eager to try out the facilities (such as the internet connections in the comlabs, the study halls and the library. And oh, did I mention you can actually sleep in the library? *wink*).

But also part of the "stereotypical stuff" are the problems and errors freshmen tend to do unknowingly. Given that their schedule has lots of breaks in it (I had two 3-hour breaks in both semesters for my freshman year), they tend to go out of school and hang out in Katipunan, or even go as far as watching a movie in Eastwood or Gateway. They join lots of orgs, then be cold, active or hyperactive in it. Most freshmen had trouble adjusting with the professor's independence scheme that they tend to be the batch that bash profs the most. They were so used to being spoon fed so they resort to saying that profs "...don't teach a goddamn thing!" or "They make us read too much!".

So, I say that what incoming freshmen have to see, based on my experience, is that they have to see and learn, sooner or later, that THIS IS THE SYSTEM THAT EVERYONE IS GOING THROUGH and they had to cope and improve, fix themselves accordingly or leave it and the school for good. I have seen people who became drunk with the independence that college life offered them. It topped their logic much to their scholastic demise. They fell out of the boat for good(read: kicked out of school).

Since you have lots of long breaks, learn to use them wisely and properly for studying or doing some school stuff. Not that I'm saying that you should take out your bonding time with your friends completely, but you should also take time out to study in the lib. It really helps. Movies in Eastwood can wait. Instead of bashing your prof, why not try to learn and accept his or her style and cope with it? Read in advance, write more, practice solving problems more. Sure, you can bash him for eternity, but bashing him and not working and doing anything about his subject at all won't get you an A, or a D even. Joining orgs is fun, yes, but avoid being hyperactive. On the other hand, avoid joining, and then, be a no-show. Learn to find the right balance between org life and academic life in order to find the level of activity that is right for you.