We probably didn’t realise it at the time, but we lived quite a sheltered live in high school. We were all underage, and our teachers were super conscious about how they acted around us so our parents wouldn’t be concerned or offended.

Uni is a completely different ball game, and it can be a bit of a shock to the system when you’ve practically been babied for your entire education. Here’s a few things that your uni lecturers and tutors can get away with that definitely wouldn’t fly with your high school teachers.

#1 Swearing In Class

This one is pretty obvious. It was always hilarious in high school when a teacher accidentally slipped out a swear word and tried to cover themselves up. After all, they could be called out if it looked like they were encouraging us to use this language as well.

Your uni lecturers will say what they want when they want, and don’t particularly care who they offend in the process. I’ve literally had a lecturer yell “what the FUCK!” at the projector when it refused to show the lecture slides. To be fair, throwing in a few swears here and there is a great way to make sure people are actually paying attention.

#2 Coffee Catch Ups

If you needed extra time with your high school teachers to discuss an assessment, you would usually only be able to see them in their office during break times. After school meet ups were more difficult to coordinate, and weekend meet ups were completely out of the question.

While you can still pop into your uni lecturers office, it’s far more common to meet up with your lecturers over a casual cup of coffee. Not only that, but if you build a good rapport with your lecturers, they’ll probably be keen for coffee catch ups once you move into the working world to see how you’re going.

#3 Hand Out Personal Contact Info

High school teachers handing out personal information is a big no-no. There’s so many laws and regulations about how teachers interact with their students, and one tiny slip up could almost ruin their career. I don’t know about you, but I was kind of excited to finally add my favourite teachers on Facebook once I graduated.

Uni lecturers are way more lax – hell, you can email them on their personal email if you want to. The thing is: do you really want to?

#4 Include “Inappropriate” Content

There’s a very strict curriculum that high school teachers need to stick to so that we all get our Grade 12 certificates. Not a lot of wiggle room means the content is all pretty vanilla, and often pretty boring.

Your uni lecturers have much freer reign with what they want to teach you, and they’ll discuss anything that helps them get their point across. They can bring up anything from illicit drugs to the sex industry without a care in the world.

#5 Tell You Their Life Story

In high school, teachers very much like to keep their professional and work lives separate. While it’s true that they tend to loosen up with us once we reach senior school, it’s nothing compared to uni lecturers.

Uni lecturers will tell you their entire life story like it’s nobody’s business. I remember my first ever lecture started with us covering course content for only 10 minutes before our lecturer told us all about his obsession with South Korea. It makes your lecturers more relatable and approachable, which is handy come exam time.

(Lead image: Friends/NBC)