Elementary School to College: Perceived Maturity

I made some charts for you guys. We were talking about maturity in my Psych class and it got me thinking about how mature everyone thought everyone else (and themselves) was at certain ages. So this is my best estimation of what I've observed and it's in no way scientific and the numbers are arbitrary. The X-axis, which is unlabeled because I'm no good at Excel, is the years in school from 1st grade Perception on until your Upper Classmen years of college.

You start off in the pre-6th grade years, which was elementary school for me. It's pretty linear, with the older you get the more mature you are, something common in all of the age groups.  Obviously the big kids are more mature than the little kids. It just makes sense!

Then you get to 6th grade and reassess that view. You've been through some harder stuff. No more recess and you're separated from friends. All of this conflict leads to personal growth. So you imagine that you'll continue to grow through high school, too. But you have no sense of college and you may not even realize what it is if you don't have older siblings. So maturity peaks, in your idea, as high school seniors.

  

Then you get into 8th grade. You're the king of the school! And every year below you is just a bunch of babies. You're no high schooler, you get that, but you're not that far behind them! You've already had two courses of sex ed and you can confidently tell the difference between a depantsed woman and a depantsed man. You see girls wearing bras and you're sure their B-cups are huge and stuffed with boobies! Only through time can you get more maturity, but you've done the majority of growth already! You're practically an adult.

Then you get to high school and realize how fuckin small your pubescent body is compared with other fuckin bastards in the grades above you. Shit, you recognize that you grew an ass-load between 7th and 8th grade, but goddammit, maybe you overestimated it a little. It's certainly not as much as you grow in mother fuckin 9th grade. And again, with age comes more stupid maturity and soon you'll be just as awesome and fucked-up as the seniors. They only discriminate against you because of fucking ageism.

Then you're seniors. Kings of the school once again. Pretty much everyone below you is a fucking idiot, always standing in the hall and so worried about getting a detention that they usually rush to class. You know you can walk in a few minutes late and charm your way out of a tardy. Or you'll accept it like a man and not bitch and moan. What're they gonna do? Stop you from graduating? Pft! You're the real king. They're just advisers as far as you're concerned. And until this time, Yeah you thought you had it tough, but really!? 300 word essays and college applications?! No one has any clue the pressure that puts on you. Certainly you don't usually text that much throughout the Calculus lecture. And you're not like those goddam freshmen, cussing sentence. When you do it, you do it to make a mother fucking point. Really you do.

 

Then college, as you anticipated, arrives and you wisely realize, Okay, maybe I overestimated my status in the world. But now! I'm one step closer to being an adult. You can vote at the proper time and place and buy cigarettes at your discretion. You could even enroll in the army and shoot some Iraqis if you so desired (Don't). But you choose to attend college because that's how you'll become affluent with a corporate job and high school didn't perfectly prepare you for anything. You showed up and you passed. You are basically a self-taught scholar up to this point and now they'll be pounding some real knowledge in you. But you can endure. You are not dubious of it in the least. And because you're adults, you have the right (fuck being 21!) to chug as many fucking beers as you want and not concern yourself with the day of the week that it is! This is what adults fucking do! And if you don't wish to grace the class with your presence, you don't have to. Your professors are all pretentious cunts anyway. You'll attend enough and on test days. You perform sufficiently and the school isn't kicking you out. If your parents ask about your grades, discuss with them the finer points of your education's mission statement.


You're an upper classman now. You've printed off 500 pages of notes and essays this semester alone. Maybe you've been abroad. You can legally drink, but only do so before exams because you know it's the best way to blow off steam. You've stopped showing up to some classes because you're only taking them because the college says you have to. And they're easy for a guy like you. You've interned at the local bank! You're a real businessman. So you can make the proper decisions when class is and isn't appropriate. You only have two classes to worry about: your seminar and the one with the cougar professor. If you do well in the seminar, you graduate. You do well in the other one, maybe she'll give you a good graduation present. She knows you're an adult. She can see that you're no longer concerned with your looks. You didn't even bother getting rid of the freshman 15. You aren't some neurotic kid any more.

The reality is none of these are accurate. Maturity peaks around 10th grade when you get your license to drive. But you're so caught up how great you are, you let yourself slide when you should be trying harder. You berate the freshmen for crowding in the halls when you and your friends do the same. You say they have no consideration because they don't move out of your way. They dare to sit at your table? And when you graduate high school, you're pretty confident that college is going to be great. You've heard all these stories about how it's one big party. You go in believing that but also thinking you're a real intellectual. You show up to classes the first few weeks, then you see others are occasionally gone. I can miss a day, too, then right? The professor doesn't say anything to you when you do. These freshmen level classes are just like high school so you figure all of college is like this. You miss more and more and parties are happening every night so you think you're required to attend all of them. And this new group of friends is going out to eat, and even though you went out a few nights ago with your other friends, you feel obligated not to favor anyone over the other.

Then in your second year of college, anxieties about your future begin. Will I have a good job? Will I ever get married? Is that girl I'm sleeping with really so slutty? Should I get tested? But rather than change your future by seeking the advice of professors and working hard, you drown yourself in booze, pot, fast food, friends, anything to keep your mind off the worries. But third year comes around, and things are looking real. You've declared your major and everyone knows your latest intended career. You have to put a conscious effort forward. And you do. And you continue to do so, as well as maintaining your fun side-life. You're not quite up to snuff as far as maturity goes, but it'll come in graduate school (I'm told) or after, when you actually start being an adult.


However successfully, I tried to do each explanation of the graph and the perceptions in the voice you might use at that age group. Some I did better than others. I forget how I explained things before 8th grade.

-Cantwhistle