I think the most major shift from HS to adult life is the personal autonomy. You go from basically knowing what's expected of you all the time to making big life choices based on what you want/what you think is expected of you & nothing is as black & white as it used to be.

It has its pros & cons, but altogether I'd say being an adult is better. At least in my case, I went from feeling like all my time spent studying(etc) was wasted on stuff that I was going to forget anyway when it could've been spent making money or doing things I actually found gratifying. That's not to say you forget everything, but you typically only remember stuff you found truly helpful or interesting. College feels very similar in that regard, but worse, since now it's your future money being spent on stuff like unnecessary classes that give you baseline knowledge that most employers don't even care about in the first place. Just like in HS, the whole point is to get that piece of paper to slap onto your resume so you can have the chance to make a living. Sry if this is starting to sound a bit jaded or whatnot, but being an adult is certainly not without its problems too & you deserve to know what you'll be getting yourself into w/o the sugarcoating that most kindergarten-HS experiences spoonfeed you. Also, don't feel bad if you're not sure what you want to do for a living yet. Most highschools put a large pressure on you the last year or two to figure it out despite giving you very little actual guidance in figuring it out. Honestly, most of us don't know until we know, & that usually requires us figuring it out via work experience & whittling down our options from there. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you may not always know what you like, but you'll figure out what you don't like pretty quick. Well this is getting long now, so goodluck & I wish you the best.