With seniors graduating soon and with students that have graduated from Notre Dame Academy home for semester break, some college students offered advice to upcoming graduates.

“College life has been a good mix of good and bad, and I really like being independent. I have been enjoying cleaning a lot more than when I was at home, and I am taking care of my mental health a lot better,” said Victoria Jardon, who is attending UW-Milwaukee.

She also really enjoys spending time with her friends in her dorm without worrying about “getting home late” although she does miss her family and wishes she was seeing her kitten grow up. 

“I do really miss working with my coworkers back home. It definitely is not the same over here, and it can be very lonely,” said Jardon.

At University of Minnesota-Duluth, Mia Miller says college life is “great.” She especially likes the schedule of college classes, which is much different from the period-after-period schedule of high school.

Miller enjoys having time between classes, which makes school and workload a lot more manageable and enjoyable.

She felt really prepared academically when she started college and thinks IB especially made college so much easier for her.

“For many people, they had to really adjust to a harder workload along with adapting to college, but the academic part wasn’t really a problem at all for me which made the whole adjustment so much easier,” said Miller.

Maddie Hilts also has found college life wonderful and says that she has learned so much about herself as a person, that she has loved growing as an individual as well as in her academics. 

“I felt over-prepared for college compared to high school, I did the full IB program, and so far freshman year has been easy in comparison,” said Hilts, who is attending the University of Dayton.

NDA graduates emphasized that you become independent in college and have to keep yourself in check as you no longer have teachers to do that for you.

“College life has been really great. I’ve actually met a lot of new friends and made real connections with my professors and my classmates.  However, when I started college I was feeling a little bit unprepared, but I learned quickly,” said Dafnee Ortiz, also at UW-Milwaukee.