Determining whether or not my K-12 experience adequately prepared me for college is complicated. There is no easy ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. The education system is meant to prepare students for life after high school. In my case, it was meant to prepare me for college. In order to determine the extent to which my California school experience prepared me for college, I must first evaluate my K-12 years through an academic, social, and emotional lens. I attended a really great school system, academically speaking. In high school alone, I was exposed to many opportunities for hands-on learning environments and was able to take Advanced Placement courses to go towards college. I am privileged to have had so many interesting learning opportunities. I took the Bio-Medical Science four-year Pathway and the Sports Medicine 2-year course that introduced me to the field that I am currently studying in university. I was also able to get hands-on experience with the Athletic Trainer at my school to discover that I want to focus on Athletic Training as my major concentration. These experiences made the transition from high school classes to college classes easy. I was even able to successfully make the Dean’s list in my first semester. All this to say that my K-12 experience in South Pasadena more than prepared me academically for the challenges I would face in university. However, where my school system excelled in academics, it lacked in social preparation. Being with the same group of people from Kindergarten all the way through Senior year made the sudden shift to university incredibly challenging. Personally, I had not needed to make many new friends since grade school since our entire class grew up together. We were very rarely exposed to people outside of our close-knit community, making the development of social skills a serious problem. I have had many conversations with fellow classmates that have had a difficult time socially transitioning to university because of this disconnect. Many of whom, including myself, have found ourselves struggling with social anxiety now that we have left the safety net of our home town. My school system's priority of academic success left little room for social events. There were no parties and dances were scarcely attended. Therefore, from my perspective, social preparation was simply not present in my school system. As previously mentioned, my high school had an overwhelming emphasis on academics, which had a horrible effect on students' emotional well-being. You have probably heard about the issues surrounding placing self-worth on a letter grade. This was my, and my peers, schooling experience. In my experience, perfection was the expectation. It was not an achievement to take honors and AP classes, awards were not celebrated, and a 3.8 GPA was the minimum requirement. The environment surrounding academic intelligence was insufferably toxic. I had two close friends attempt suicide and knew of others. Almost every person I talked to was anxious and/or depressed because of this heavy, blue-ribbon cloud. Personally, I have been left struggling emotionally and mentally while still performing great academically. Needless to say, my K-12 experience gave me an unhealthy relationship with success. I have had to re-teach that an “A” is good and achievement should be celebrated. I still struggle with this, but I am doing better. The level of pressure to be academically perfect placed on us by the school system did not prepare me, or my peers, for a life in college. I was more than adequately prepared academically for college and drastically underprepared for the social and emotional aspects of surviving day-to-day life.