Well, yes & no. The main problem is that high school is a very artificial environment in which a student has very little freedom. Consider bullying. I had to d

Well, yes & no. The main problem is that high school is a very artificial environment in which a student has very little freedom. Consider bullying. I had to deal with bullies in jr. high & high school, because there simply was no way to avoid them. But after high school, I didn't go where the bullies were. Problem solved. Yes, there were bullies in elementary school, but they weren't really capable of doing much damage yet. And there is a flip side: teenagers are protected from the consequences of their decisions. This is another reason for bullying: the bullies get away with it. But in the adult world, violent people can be fired, jailed, etc. And bullying is just one issue of many. So, yes, peer influences can be a problem throughout life; however I definitely do not see the adult world as being more dangerous, if you can't figure out how survive in the teen world. Certainly my own experience does not support that idea. See also PGs essays on high school. I don't mean that he is supporting my ideas; rather he provides a good explanation of why high school is different from "the real world". Thus, I don't see that figuring out how to survive high school really gives one much in the way of practical life skills for the long term.