@aceofspaades Oh that's so nice for your school to do that! And no, unfortunately they don't do that haha. In college (I'm assuming you're in the US where "college" comes after high school, and not "college" in the UK which means something else entirely), the classes you take only last for one semester. You can of course take a second class in the subject (calc 2 after calc 1) but it doesn't have to be with the same professor or immediately after the first class. So your grades or anything don't carry over. I also can't say for other universities, but for mine, intro class (called 100 level classes) must have a final during finals week, whereas for upper level classes (200 and up classes), they aren't mandatory. So one of my anthropology classes has an optional final that you can take to boost your grade, while for one of my chemistry classes, we didn't have a final at all. So that's nice haha.
Hmm I would say that I struggled quite a bit adjusting to college, though not everyone has that experience. College is really what you make of it. The first year of college, I really clung onto my high school friends and refused to go out. I had a really tight knit group of friends in high school and had this really dark outlook i.e., I'll never have the same inside jokes with these new people, I'll never have x, y, or z, etc. I never focused on the new possibilities, so yeah. The people who embraced the change were able to adjust a lot faster and were happier than I was. Last year (junior year) I finally started opening up and going out and doing things and I found that I had such a good time. I couldn't replace my old friends ofc, but that didn't matter anymore. I was forming new inside jokes, I was building new, lasting relationships. So I guess my words of advice to you is to go to college with optimism and an open mind. There's a huge world out there waiting for you to enjoy! You'll meet so many people from different backgrounds and walks of life. Get to know them!