My last two years of high school had 8 hours a day in class, one to two hours of homework a night (including the long term projects you mentioned), a 20 hour a week part time job, and three extra curricular activities that ate probably about 20 hours a week in meetings, fundraising, and practice.
So, all, told, I was working _80 hours a week, minimum_ in my high school years. I graduated top ten in my class, and my parents were astonished that I took two years off between high school and college going to a technical school eight hours a week with a 40 hour a week job. I had cut 32 hours of work a week out of my week, and I was only 19!
When I finally did go to college, the weeks during the semester were about twenty hours a week between classes, studying, projects, and tutoring and a twenty hour a week part time job. I can understand why you felt like college was a vacation because I felt the same way!
The downside to all of this is that I was very poorly socialized, compared to some of my peers, when I started college. Luckily, since I had a bunch of free time, it was easy to catch up, but the first semester was difficult for me navigating all of these unstructured, unsupervised socialization opportunities. A part of me regrets that because that stunted my ability to network from the start of college - I have no idea what opportunities I have missed out on and will miss out on in the future as a result.
Several people that graduated in that top ten with me who had the same 80 hour a week work week in high school could not handle the unstructured free time in college. Two dropped out of college but have none-the-less worked their way into lives that seem to make them happy, one got heavily into drugs and is still in jail, one committed suicide, and the rest graduated and seem to have kept on the track.
So, all, told, I was working _80 hours a week, minimum_ in my high school years. I graduated top ten in my class, and my parents were astonished that I took two years off between high school and college going to a technical school eight hours a week with a 40 hour a week job. I had cut 32 hours of work a week out of my week, and I was only 19!
When I finally did go to college, the weeks during the semester were about twenty hours a week between classes, studying, projects, and tutoring and a twenty hour a week part time job. I can understand why you felt like college was a vacation because I felt the same way!
The downside to all of this is that I was very poorly socialized, compared to some of my peers, when I started college. Luckily, since I had a bunch of free time, it was easy to catch up, but the first semester was difficult for me navigating all of these unstructured, unsupervised socialization opportunities. A part of me regrets that because that stunted my ability to network from the start of college - I have no idea what opportunities I have missed out on and will miss out on in the future as a result.
Several people that graduated in that top ten with me who had the same 80 hour a week work week in high school could not handle the unstructured free time in college. Two dropped out of college but have none-the-less worked their way into lives that seem to make them happy, one got heavily into drugs and is still in jail, one committed suicide, and the rest graduated and seem to have kept on the track.