In college, the level of thinking that your instructors expect from you exceeds that which you did in high school, both in terms of the questions that are asked and the answers that are expected. For instance, if a high school teacher asked, “What are the three branches of the U.S. government?” he or she would ask you to give the one right answer: “legislative, executive, and judicial.” A college instructor, on the other hand, might ask, “Under what circumstances might conflicts arise among the three branches of government, and what do the circumstances and the conflicts reveal about the democratic process?” There is no simple, quick, or single acceptable answer to the second question—that’s the point of higher education. Questions that suggest complex answers engage you in the process of deep thinking. The shift to this higher or deeper level of thinking can be an adjustment—it might even catch you off guard and cause you some stress.

One step toward deep and critical thinking is becoming comfortable with uncertainty. In college, it’s important to challenge assumptions and conclusions, even those presented by so-called experts. Rather than just taking in information, studying it, and then recalling it for a test, in college you’ll go far beyond these skills and gain the ability and the confidence to arrive at your own conclusions—to think for yourself. Educational researchers describe this process as “constructing” knowledge for yourself rather than merely “receiving” knowledge from others. Courses in every discipline will encourage you to ask questions, sort through competing information and ideas, form well-reasoned opinions, and defend them.

It is natural to feel frustrated by answers that are neither entirely wrong nor right, yet the complicated questions are usually the ones that are the most interesting and worthy of study. Working out the answers can be both intellectually exciting and personally rewarding.