NO ONE is going to wake you up to go to your college class (Shutterstock).

For anyone leaving high school for college, the military, trade school or just any old job, the three months or so after high school graduation are the most transitional season of a lifetime.

There will be lots of other changes to follow. Sometimes you will progress … sometimes stall, but you can (probably) never go back to feeling about life the way you used to.

College may resemble high school but isn’t. In high school you may have been with other kids you’ve known since grade school.

In college you are one freshman immersed in an ocean of other disassociated students. There’s no rah-rah, no pep rallies. Anyone who wears their high school varsity jacket believing it carried status is laughed at. Any who thinks the college is going to care if you show up to class is in for a big surprise.

Except for a few hard-line profs (such as I was) who think showing up is important, you can drift in and out … and if you do you’ll probably flunk and change your major, for the first one or two times.

Your high school amour might last for a semester or two … but with so any other choices, the eye drifts.

Summer jobs are different, too. Instead of a few days a week, a summer job is 40 hours in the hottest part of the year. If working full-time in a sweaty uniform for crappy wages doesn’t convince you that getting a degree is a good idea, perhaps nothing will.

This is when Mom or Dad’s clunky car they let you drive to work or school is so embarrassing you are compelled to get into a habit of saving and planning ahead, and starting to appreciate a potential mate who is also diligent putting a few pennies aside.

In short, you start becoming the person you will be for the next 50 years. You’ll go forward, but there’s no going back.