High school: Typically attend school five days a week between 8:30am to 3:30pm. Expected to attend all classes.

University: Fewer contact hours overall. Some units may have as few as three contact hours per week. Classes may be scheduled later in the day, or even in the evening. Attendance is often not mandatory.

High school: Most instruction takes place in a classroom of 22 to 30 students.

University: Instruction format depends on the unit. Lectures with hundreds of students are possible. There are also tutorials and labs with smaller class sizes.

High school: Little flexibility in choosing class times.

University: A given unit may offer a variety of times for tutorials and labs. Students may have the option to choose the times which suit them best.

High school: The high school teacher is the primary instructor. Commonly they know their students by name.

University: Lecture classes are taught by lecturers that are either permanent staff or on short-term contracts. It’s normal for the lecturer to not know students by name. Tutorials and workshops may be taught by PhD students and other less senior staff.

High school: Regular homework assigned.

University: Coursework is highly unit dependent. There might be weekly assignments or only a couple of large assignments per semester.

High school: Attendance and homework is often monitored by teachers.

University: More independence. Little follow up regarding non-attendance or missed work. More self-management is required when it comes to studying and meeting deadlines.

High school: Students often live at home with other family members (unless they go to boarding school)

University: Some students live with family, but others live in university accommodation or independently in flats. University students often need to take more responsibility for cleaning, washing clothes, preparing meals, budgeting etc. Students are often shocked to find that any contracts they have signed for accommodation are legally binding, and they can’t just move out when they feel like it.

High School: Relatively fixed time commitment involving school hours plus some homework.

University: Highly variable. Some degrees may have a relatively light workload. Others are known for their heavy demands where a large volume of material is covered each week accompanied by difficult assessments. Universities commonly have a guideline that each unit requires a commitment of ten hours per week (made up of scheduled contact hours and independent study).

High School: Students who attend public high school can usually do so free of charge.

University: Expensive tuition fees that can rise to extreme levels for international students. Often funded by student loans.

High School: Curriculum designed so an average student can pass.

University: Typically more difficult and more academic in focus. Some courses are widely regarded as challenging as they are aimed at those who have an aptitude in the subject. Even students who did well in high school can sometimes struggle at university. In the past some academic departments aimed to weed out students as they were only interested in top performers. More recently, for financial reasons, they have come under pressure to pass more students and inflate grades. Units that could be considered weed out classes still exist for a variety of reasons, such as when they need to sort students due to a limited number of places in subsequent years.

High School: The high school syllabus is such that it can be covered at a relatively non-demanding pace over the course of a school year

University: New students are often surprised by the fast pace. This is due to the size of the syllabus and the limited number of teaching hours per semester. Some students regard the lectures as more defining the syllabus than actually teaching it.

High School: Curriculum is standardised at the state or national level. This can mean a relatively easy process if you want to transfer schools.

University: Curriculum can vary between universities. Degrees can be structured differently, and courses contain different material. If a student wants to transfer university it can be a difficult process and not every completed course will transfer over. One notable example is the University of Melbourne model where their undergraduate degrees are quite different from those of other Melbourne universities.

High School: Many high schools require students to wear a uniform.

University: No uniform is needed for most courses and no dress code is enforced. Students choose clothing based on comfort and practicality. Nobody really pays attention to what a student is wearing provided the fashion isn’t extreme. The only exception will be degrees like nursing that have clinical placements. In these cases, a uniform will be required for those placements.

High School: Even the biggest high school in Australia or New Zealand has less than 5000 students.

University: Although enrolments are spread over multiple campuses, some campuses are huge with over 30,000 full-time students.