Is College Just High School All Over Again For You?

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I've been in college for a full semester now, and while I love my classes and professors and new found friends, I just feel like I'm often the only sane and mature one out of most of my classmates.
I didn't expect that I'd be within a world of sophisticated people mind you, no, I know better than that. I expected pot smoking and drinking, that's typical. I expected stupid people, sure. Though I really expected to be surrounded by people who actually wanted an education, and peers who were creative. I was hoping that I wasn't going to deal with stupidity in the form of immature overgrown teenagers.
I'm actually starting college a few years later than most of my friends, I'm 20, close to 21, and my roommate is 18.

She has awful friends, all her age and are extremely ignorant and rude and disruptive. They come into the dorm yelling and demanding to know where the food is and have changed the tv channels while I'm clearly watching my shows. They bang on the door at four in the morning drunk demanding my roommate to come out and join them.

Like one time I was just lying in bed reading, and they came in yelling and carrying on, and then they saw me and assumed I was sleeping, (sense they could only see my back) and started to try to quiet themselves "Shh! Shh! Quiet, her roommate is sleeping!" This one girl said very obnoxiously loud as if she wanted me to hear, "I don't care! I hate that B****!"

I'm so confused by that, I mean, what in the world did I ever do to her? I had never said anything to her, I hardly know who she is and we've never had a conversation and she just says that? I promptly got off the bed and picked up my book and went out, and they just cheerfully pretended that didn't happen, just saying "Hi" and as soon as I shut the door I could hear them laughing.

and this one girl when I first met her she kept seeing me at my computer, concentrating on an essay.
She finally asked, "You know, every time I see you you look sad, aren't you ever happy?"
This really annoyed me, because I've dealt with this since High School. I don't smile unless there's something to smile at, isn't that simple?
I jokingly asked, "Define 'happy'?"
"You know, SMILE! Don't you ever smile?"
I told her "Yeah, I do, I do a lot actually. There's always something for me to laugh at. But when I don't have a reason to smile, I don't smile, It'd be creepy if I just smiled constantly."
She disagreed. "No it wouldn't, I know lots of people who smile all the time!"

Same girls told security on my friends one night about a private Halloween party, that they, and along with a bunch of random older men who probably don't go to the college, crashed. The host and his roommate yelled at them to leave, and the girls apparently gave them a look that could kill and about ten minutes later, while I'm just enjoying myself at the snack table the security people came in and raided the place to find alcohol in the cabinets.
Did I know about it? No, I came to the party late and no one told me it would go there and even if I did I wasn't planning on getting drunk. But we were all busted all the same, and after a while we all migrated to my dorm to just chill and just lie low for a few hours, and my roommate and her friends came in and were like, "Aww, what happened?" None of us we're fooled, they ratted us out just because.

To be clear, my roommate and I are on good terms, but her friends are awful.

It's just stupid, contrived things that make me hate being around others here.

Like in my Public Speaking class, there are so many people who just don't care about anything. We had a "Why Hire Me" speech that the whole class was supposed to get done with within a two week period. Well, because out of the thirty something class only ten of the students decided to show up for every class, making the speeches drag on for six weeks! Because some selfish fresh out of high school brats didn't want to do the work and get an easy grade, from a professor who was willing to help and was very relaxed on returning homework.
And they would constantly text, when the professor would tell them to put the phones away they would contradict with "I am not texting! You're always pickin' on me!"

Does anyone else feel like nothing has really changed, are things better? Or worse?

I've only started uni this year, but I pretty much agree with you. I guess it depends on what university and course and such, but I'm struck by how absent any community or happiness seems to be among students at my uni, not that I was surprised.

A lot of them would probably prefer learning maturity but don't know how to go against thecrowd, or think it's illegal or something. Pity the poor sods!

Yes, I'm sorry, but it sounds like you're having a typical college experience. It's good practice for tolerating morons, who are everywhere in life.

I think you dealt well with that irritating girl who was focused on smiling. When I see people smiling all the time, I assume they're either not very smart or they're smiling all the time to hide how they really feel.

Actually, it's been the opposite. I love college. Because I went to a small high school everyone knew everyone else's business, and it was either make friends with the eighty or so oddball classmates or be a liner. In college the place has so many people I can pick my own friends and best of all, I'm not forced to take irrelevant classes and I get to be involved with the gay-straight alliance. I also finally found an awesome boyfriend

I've been in college for one full semester, too. Personally, I feel that college is high school with dorms. Sometimes people even seem less mature than high school students. I hate the social pressures of college and living on campus. Your roommate sounds horrible. I'd go talk to residential life about that. I've had roommate issues also, but she is going to Argentina next semester. I'm going to get a room to myself because I talked to disability services.

High school: Took 4 years for us to learn how to multiply 2 numbers together
College: Spend 16 hours a day working on design projects and studying obscure theories and equations

Big difference for me!

Thankfully, as the creepy old dude, I don't have to deal with most of the social stuff...

What I hate is all the group work--it's usually a good opportunity to study social loafing in action, but not good for much else.

I always attract the slackers... I guess they're thinking, "Hey, I bet that weird old dude does homework and gives a crap about his grades... Let's get him to do our project!"

I was in a math class like that. I did the work of 6 people for 3 projects. When I was sure I could keep an A without doing the last project, I stopped going to class...

^ Depends on how the professor grades. I've been in classes with NO extra credit and 93% needed for an A. So I HAD to do all the work.

There was one class where, at final exam time, I could have completely skipped the final and gotten an A. But I took it anyway, because I wanted the A+.

College is nothing like my experience in highschool, for one thing no one freakin' bothers me in College. They don't talk to me if I don't initiate it, and I'm not constantly being pestered to come up to the front and do things on the blackboard.. I love it.. I show up for class, do my work, get good grades and go home at the end of the day.. No predatory bullies, no hate, or spite, or anxiety.

I'm a senior in college, and a lot of it was like high school. People told me that people are less cliquey in college, but that's so not true. Yes, people aren't segregated by lunch table, but in my experience people only want to be friends with certain kinds of people and are very exclusive toward anyone different (e.g. me). And people can be very immature, when I was a freshmen people on my floor would have door-slamming contests--yes, really. But people are just as exclusive and oftentimes mean as in high school. The only difference is that I go to a huge college so I'm invisible rather than the class freak.

People like that shouldn't even be allowed to go into higher education if they aren't willing to put any effort into their work.

Gladly, I don't see that at uni. Everyone on my course wants to be there and takes it seriously. While they can be foolish and playful at times, they are serious workers. As for college*, well we had a few bad eggs but they got kicked off after the first few weeks.

My roommates are about my age and are pretty mature. We've never fought with one another and respect each other's space, clean up after ourselves and one another, etc. I'm very lucky.

I think you've hit the nail on the head - these are kids that are just out of school and have no life experience, so they aren't really mentally prepared for the environment. That's why I went to college first - I didn't feel ready to go and leave home and be an adult when I left school. That was a good decision, I think.

I don't know what country you're in, but I suspect all these kids have parents that pay their tuition for them, which is even more disgraceful. Their parents are working their butts off for these lousy, ungrateful brats that aren't even trying. And if it's a scholarship or funding like SAAS, then that's even worse.

*College and Uni are different in Scotland

I don't get why people don't try harder. Attending class is the easy part you can get distracted when studying on your own. Although I think there might have been some classes where people tried less in college.

Most people are in college because social learning says it's the way to succeed, not because they want to learn, and they don't understand that what you get out of college is proportional to effort, commitment, and interest.

I actually heard someone say "C's get degrees" during Calc 2. They may get the degree but most employers know that a C from a public university is basically a failing grade by the standard of understanding the material (most companies seem to want 3.0+ to 3.5+). And then they'll sit around and gripe on the Internet about how their "edumacation" didn't get them anywhere.

In several ways college became an even worse experience for me than high school. The only upside to college was that the rules were less strict and I had more freedom to go where I want and be with who I want. The major downside was that my choice of friends in college were a worser bunch than my friends in high school. And alcohol didn't have much to do with it either. My college friends were much more verbally abusive towards me and my best friend back then ended up (as the saying goes) 'threw me under the bus' to save herself from taking responsibility for a screwup she caused. I guess since I chose these friends myself I kinda had what was coming to me and being on meds at the time didn't help much either.

College is dramatically different for me. Ive been in since 2007. No fights, no social pressure, no smoke filled restrooms, and none of that horrible NOISE before and after class and in the halls. For the most part everyone has made the decision to be there, and has put some level of thought into why they are there(beyond avoiding being detained for truancy, which seemed to be the main reason anyone showed up in high school.) High school was completely intolerable for me and I dropped in 10th grade. I really enjoy almost everything about college. I have yet to encounter a single jerkface! I tend to not engage with anyone whose interests don't overlap with mine, however. Anyone who considers a party or bar or sporting event to be a good time is not someone I can hold a conversation with for very long, and they will lead me to ruin if I do engage. College seems like a nerdland commune to me, and I fit in very well. Ive found it's also a good idea to avoid freshmen who don't quite get it yet. It requires a completely different mindset from high school. I can't really speak for anything outside of the classroom, like the dorm environment or roommates. I imagine either of those things would be a complete nightmare.

Definitely. Not much has changed.