As a high-school swimmer, you may have enjoyed a fair degree of success, and really enjoyed the thrill of being part of a team and living a healthy lifestyle which has motivated you to achieve your goals. Now you have graduated high school and you are taking the plunge (swimming-based pun alert) which is going to college. Do you continue with your swimming, or do you take on new interests as your life changes too?

Of course, making that decision may depend on many things, such as how good you are and how good you can be. You may have secured a swimming scholarship for example, and so there really is no choice in the matter. Whatever your circumstances, however, here are five considerations for you to take into account before you embark on your college career in terms of swimming.

You’ll make a new family

Something that probably characterized your time at high school was the incredible bonds you made with the people you trained with on the swim team. All those early morning starts at the swimming pool, not to mention travelling to swim meets created a bond between you that you are incredibly sad to be breaking now your time at highs school has come to an end.

However, can you imagine the bonds you will make at college? Chances are you will be living away from home for the first time, and as you discover your independence, the friendships that you make at college will sustain you, perhaps for life.

“The relationships that you will establish with your college swim team buddies will be something you will never regret, and as you support each other through the good times and the bad, feel blessed that you have these people to share your experiences with,” says Thea Roberts, an educator at Dissertation Service and PaperFellows.

Your eyes will be opened to new training methods

Highs school is a bubble, and a relatively small one at that. If you are lucky you had a great coach who instilled in you a great work ethic as well as armed you will some great training techniques that you will carry with you into your college swimming career.

“Be prepared for your eyes to be opened. Now you are a small fish in a very big pond (more puns) and you will discover that everybody has been trained slightly differently, while the college coaches will introduce you to even more different ways to attain your goals. Open your mind to new coaching techniques, training regimes and approaches to the sport as you seek to improve yourself both as a swimmer and a person,” suggests Curt Sebastien, a sports coach at Academized and OxEssays.

It’ll keep you focused

College is an incredibly challenging time, mostly in great ways, but it can also be tough. Be prepared for serious lifestyle changes as you learn to fend for yourself, and try to fit in the rigors of training with academic and social commitments. This is something that every student goes through to some extent or another, but swimming will allow you to maintain some semblance of a routine that you have become familiar with through your high school career, and will help keep you motivated and physically healthy for all the college challenges which lie ahead.

You’ll learn about yourself

Logically, swimming collegiately will be much more challenging, and even if you secured a lot of success swimming at high school level, it is unlikely that you will repeat that success in college, simple because the bar will be raised immeasurably. That may be difficult to handle, but think about how much you will learn about yourself as you set yourself to those ups and downs that will come about. That is one incredibly valuable lesson to learn.

You’ll push yourself

And following on swiftly from learning about yourself, to say competitive in college, you’ll need to push yourself like you never have before. Highs school swimming may have seemed tough at the time, but you will soon realize that you were in a comfort zone that can never be repeated at college level. Push yourself: even if you ultimately don’t succeed, you will be forever grateful that you did.

Teacher Aimee Laurence can be found offering her insights at the Marketing assignment help and EssayRoo websites, where she mainly contributes articles on developing lessons and education in general. Aimee also tutors at Legit Essay Writing Service.