Preamble

"You See Something Fading": An Investigation of College Students' Nostalgia for Senior High School

Li Jiawen¹,⁵*, Ren Zhitong²,⁵, Zhu Hanzheng³,⁵, Xu Kexin⁴,⁵

¹Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023
²Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023
³Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023
⁴Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023
⁵Yangzhou High School of Jiangsu Province, Yangzhou, Jiangsu 225009

Abstract
Social media posts expressing a desire to "return to senior year for a couple of days" have become ubiquitous. To investigate college students' nostalgia for senior high school, this study employs an innovative interdisciplinary approach combining statistical analysis with corpus analysis. We propose a method for calculating a composite nostalgia score for college students and draw three main conclusions: (1) male students exhibit higher nostalgia levels than female students; (2) freshmen are less nostalgic than students in other grades; and (3) except in regions using the National College Entrance Examination (Gaokao) Paper I, students from areas with higher overall high school education levels demonstrate greater nostalgia. The study also proposes eight hypotheses for future research that may have reference value for various groups. Limitations include some unreasonable aspects of questionnaire design and data analysis methods, as well as incorrect treatment of low-probability events.

Keywords nostalgia, college students, senior high school, corpus analysis, composite nostalgia score

*Corresponding author. Email: jiawenli@smail.nju.edu.cn

1. Background and Literature Review

1.1 Research Background

Recently, while volunteering as admissions counselors at our former high school, we observed graduates gathering on campus. Browsing their social media posts revealed pervasive nostalgia, prompting us to ask: Is college students' nostalgia for high school universal? Under what conditions is it triggered? The place we once yearned to escape from during high school transforms into an "eternal home" within half a year—what exactly is the object of this nostalgia?

We recall the viral phrase "want to return to senior year for a couple of days." Is senior year truly easier than college? If not, what explains such expressions? Looking back at senior year, did we not also fantasize about college life? And have those expectations been fulfilled?

Going further back, did the increased academic burden in middle school make us long for carefree childhood? How does this differ from college students' nostalgia for high school?

With these questions, this paper employs multidisciplinary methods to explore college students' nostalgia for senior high school. Nostalgia is a normal psychological phenomenon, yet excessive nostalgia offers no benefit to the present or future. Learning to properly negotiate past, present, and future is essential for college students entering society. We hope this study clarifies the causes and objects of this nostalgia to help students truly embrace college and broader social life.

1.2 Literature Review

The term "nostalgia" first appears in Chinese literature in the Book of Later Han: "May the guest express nostalgic sentiments and evoke ancient contemplations." However, systematic research on nostalgia (Nostalgia) originated in the West. The word derives from Greek nostos (return) and algos (pain).

Initially conceptualized as a medical or neurological disease by Swiss physician Johannes Hofer, nostalgia's symptoms included weeping, anxiety, irregular heartbeat, anorexia, insomnia, and even suffocation. Hofer believed the disease stemmed from deep attachment to one's homeland lingering in midbrain fibers. Johann Jacob Scheuchzer alternatively attributed it to atmospheric pressure changes causing increased internal pressure and blood reflux to the brain, producing pain. These views dominated the 17th-18th centuries. By the 19th century, nostalgia became defined as a form of depression, and in the first half of the 20th century, it was primarily examined in relation to immigration issues. Only in the latter half of the 20th century did nostalgia emerge as an independent field, distinguished from terms like "homesickness."

However, research has focused more on advertising and consumption, such as Lu Manman's (2008) work linking nostalgia to trust in old brands. Studies on nostalgia itself remain scarce, limited to Batcho (1998) on interpersonal relationships, Cavanaugh (1989) on memory, and Kaplan (1987) on affective dimensions.

Wildschut et al. (2006) systematically elucidated nostalgia's content, triggers, and functions through seven experiments, concluding that: (1) nostalgic experiences typically form egocentrically through interactions with close others or meaningful events; (2) positive expressions outweigh negative ones; (3) nostalgia is triggered when coping with negative emotions and loneliness; and (4) nostalgia functions to enhance social connectedness, improve self-evaluation, and generate positive emotions. Li Bin et al. (2015) reviewed additional experiments on nostalgia's triggers, paradigms, and measurements, while Yu Jie (2007) offered a more literary depiction of modern nostalgia.

Research on Chinese college students' nostalgia is particularly scarce. Li Yue (2012) discussed the relationship between college students' nostalgia and subjective well-being, Sun Xiulan (2014) examined loneliness, and Dong Wen and Zhou Haiming (2019) and Yang Lianqing and Liu Jiang (2022) investigated connections with life satisfaction. Xu Xiaoting (2014) attempted to demonstrate nostalgia's ubiquity by examining its relationship with self-harmony.

Beyond psychology, Du Xuan and Liu Yusi (2022) analyzed media technology nostalgia's impact on youth psychology. However, these studies generally categorize college student nostalgia into personal/family/social or individual/collective levels, neglecting "school" as a special unit. The transition from high school to college represents not only a field shift but also a psychological shock. This study innovatively focuses on college students' nostalgia for senior high school, discussing related content and offering corresponding insights.

2. Research Design

2.1 Research Methods

We employed an interdisciplinary approach. For scale statistics, we used statistical methods including descriptive analysis, ANOVA, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and network analysis. For the interview content in the final questionnaire item, we conducted corpus analysis on large texts, using TF-IDF algorithms to extract and analyze keywords.

2.2 Research Subjects

Our subjects were current undergraduate and graduate students at domestic universities. We distributed electronic questionnaires through university student chat groups and high school alumni groups, collecting 306 responses, of which 297 were valid (97.06% validity rate). Invalid questionnaires primarily involved missing or scrambled responses to item 3. One hundred forty participants answered the final open-ended question.

Sample demographics were: (1) Gender: 50.84% male, 49.16% female (nearly 1:1 ratio); (2) Grade: Freshmen comprised the vast majority at 87.88%, sophomores 6.73%, juniors 3.70%, seniors 0.67%, and graduate students 1.01%; (3) High school location: 61.95% from Jiangsu Province, with other frequent provinces being Hunan (6.40%), Zhejiang (5.39%), and Guangdong (3.03%); (4) Location type: 86.87% urban, 13.13% rural.

Additionally, we posted interview questions on social media platforms like WeChat Moments and campus forums, obtaining 20 valid responses.

2.3 Research Tools

Our tools included a survey questionnaire and corpus analysis software.

2.3.1 Survey Questionnaire

Our questionnaire was self-developed based on existing nostalgia scales by Lu Manman (2008), Li Yue (2012), and Sun Xiulan (2014). Except for basic information items 1-4 and the interview question 23, all items used a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Items 20, 21, and 22 were used for other purposes and are excluded from statistical analysis unless noted. Due to experimental scale and time constraints, we did not conduct a pilot test but performed validity and reliability analyses on the final valid questionnaires, yielding satisfactory results.

We conducted KMO and Bartlett's tests on the remaining 15 items, obtaining a KMO value of 0.841 and Bartlett's test approximate chi-square of 1497.328 (df = 105, p < 0.001), indicating suitability for factor analysis. Using principal component extraction and varimax rotation:

The scree plot shows four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, after which the line flattens. The first three factors appear primary, while the fourth contains only two questions with less prominent loadings, making it secondary. These four factors explain 60.518% of variance, demonstrating strong overall explanatory power. Notably, item 17, though categorized under factor 4, cannot be well classified by any factor—a point we will revisit.

Based on this analysis, the scale can be simplified to 13 questions loading on three factors, with remaining items discussed separately. Item 8's content clearly differs from its group, so we reclassified it as "other" rather than part of factor 3:

Factor 1 (Nostalgic Sentiment): Q5 (High school days are memorable), Q6 (I miss being with high school classmates), Q7 (I miss days spent with high school teachers)

Factor 2 (Comparative Disillusionment): Q10 (I'm proud of my high school itself), Q9 (I often think about high school events), Q13 (People in college are much more utilitarian than in high school)

Factor 3 (Emotional Distance): Q12 (I feel more emotional indifference between people in college than in high school), Q14 (Living in college is more exhausting than high school), Q19 (I'm very confused about my future)

Other Items: Q11 (Current interpersonal relationships are much more complex than in high school), Q15 (I have many regrets about high school), Q16 (I should have cherished high school more), Q8 (Parents treated me better in high school than now), Q18 (In high school I had goals or aspirations), Q17 (I'd rather return to high school)

Reliability analysis yielded a Cronbach's α coefficient of 0.847, indicating high reliability and reasonable scale construction. We used SPSS 26 and JASP for data analysis.

2.3.2 Corpus Analysis

We used HanLP, jieba, and Baidu AI plugins called through Python 3.8 for word segmentation, keyword extraction, and sentiment analysis. HanLP served as the segmentation tool, TF-IDF for keyword extraction, and Baidu AI's NLP interface for text sentiment analysis, with results exported to Excel using pandas.

HanLP segmentation simply requires calling the HanLP.segment method. Jieba's TF-IDF analysis uses jieba.analyse.extract_tags. Baidu AI requires constructing a client with AipNlp before calling sentimentClassify to output dictionary-form sentiment results.

2.4 Research Hypotheses

We propose: (1) College students' nostalgia for high school relates to gender; (2) It relates to grade level; (3) It relates to geographic region.

3. Results and Analysis

3.1 Composite Score and Related Conclusions

We first quantified each sample's nostalgia level. Based on the total variance explanation table, let a_n denote the rotated variance percentage for factor n, and FAC_n denote the factor score generated by regression. The composite score S is:

$$S = \sum a_n \cdot FAC_n$$

Calculating this for all samples, we examined the score's distribution across gender, region, and other categories, yielding statistically significant conclusions.

3.1.1 Male College Students Show Slightly Higher Nostalgia for High School Than Females

This conclusion contradicts Dong Wen and Zhou Haiming (2019), who found female college students' nostalgia levels significantly higher than males. We explored reasons through corpus analysis of responses to item 23. Using Baidu AI's sentiment analysis interface, we analyzed answer texts by gender. Sentiment倾向 (Sen) is coded as 0, 1, or 2 for negative, neutral, and positive emotions toward high school, with confidence level Con. The emotion composite score E is:

$$E = (Sen - 1) \times Con$$

After adjusting obviously incorrect Sen values and averaging all samples, males' E value was 0.678 versus females' 0.642, confirming males' slightly higher positivity and suggesting Dong and Zhou's conclusion lacks universality across all nostalgia objects. We then explored why female participants were less nostalgic.

Using TF-IDF to extract keywords from answer texts by gender (top 20 results, with unreasonable content removed):

Male keywords included "youth," "life," and "like/love," while female keywords centered on "study," "teacher," and "goal." While "life" is universal and "youth" is abstract, we examined "like/love," which modifies broad objects: "the girl I liked," cities, schools, subjects, or landscapes. Female keywords more clearly focused on study-related discourse. This doesn't mean female high school students were more academically passionate—calculating average scores on item 18 (having goals), males scored 3.914 versus females' 3.685. Corpus analysis merely shows study-related vocabulary was mentioned more frequently by female respondents, regardless of whether goals were present or explicit. Male respondents, despite possibly having clearer goals, mentioned them less, preferring other topics.

Examining items 7 (missing teachers) and 10 (school pride), female averages were 3.669 and 3.630 respectively, both significantly lower than male scores of 3.715. Female respondents evaluated teachers and schools markedly lower. Qualitative analysis of item 23 responses reveals statements like:

1. "Some teachers with poor emotional management, rigid and inhumane systems... Taking an elevator gets you scolded, while peeping toms are easily pardoned... Returning to that school seems like a victim returning to the crime scene for an autopsy."

2. "I admit the future may hold more difficulties, but no one can erase the marks that suffering carves into a person."

3. "Because my grade director, with ambitious demands, made me do things I didn't want to do."

Such critical statements about schools and teachers abound. This isn't criticism of any single institution but a call for all high schools and teachers to reflect and immediately correct biased attitudes and actions toward female students.

Network analysis of all female samples clearly reveals this pattern: items 7 and 5 show high positive correlation, indicating low teacher evaluations directly relate to low overall nostalgia; item 10 also connects closely with item 7. Both corpus and statistical analyses reliably associate female students' lower nostalgia with dissatisfaction toward teachers and schools.

This represents overall sample trends, not implying only females face poor treatment. Male samples also show qualitative dissatisfaction deserving attention.

Beyond negative female perspectives, we must also examine affirmative reasons for male nostalgia. First, examining "like/love" narrowly, male responses include:

1. "Seize that girl, if I could do it again."
2. "Time passed, I kept that letter until summer vacation but never sent it. Now separated by thousands of miles, it's a deep regret."
3. "A friendship that couldn't become romance... but I still lack the courage to face the other person."
4. "The girl I liked and past dreams."

These "likes" mostly ended in one-sided regrets, consistent with Zeigarnik's (1927) finding that incompleteness affects memory retention. The meaning of "forgetting" isn't pure ignorance but behavioral incompletion: like waiters clearly remembering unfinished orders but not completed ones, people remember incomplete events vividly, linking unfinished "likes" to higher nostalgia.

Second, the rational economic agent emerges during the high school-to-college transition, replacing "natural youth":

1. "Although I discovered after entering college that it's not so wonderful, employment pressure feels more real, and the future is uncertain—facing more than the concrete, singular melody of high school life: 'every extra point defeats a thousand people.'"

2. "Meanwhile, our confusion about future life has reached the point where we know the path ahead is chaotic but feel numb to it. Maybe just continuing forward is life's answer..."

The emergence of the rational economic agent inevitably displaces the natural person to some degree, signifying natural youth's demise. "Natural youth" refers to the stage before recognizing one's socioeconomic responsibilities, ending around college entry—when parents age and retire. Psychoanalytically, the "father" as authority figure tacitly allows the "son" to become a true "adult," whether by challenging his authority successfully or through forced "spontaneous" succession, transferring both authority and burden to the "son." The sudden burden makes new college students quickly abandon natural youth for "college student" status. Though life hasn't yet been concretely invested into objects, social consciousness already makes life contemplate its externalized future. The contradiction between insufficient responsibility-bearing capacity and urgent socioeconomic needs shapes male students' nostalgia for natural youth.

3.1.2 College Students' Nostalgia Relates to Grade Level

We first examined normality of composite score distribution across five grade intervals. Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests showed sophomore and junior samples followed normal distribution. Senior and graduate samples were too small for statistical analysis, only permitting qualitative examination.

Freshman sample composite scores showed skewness of -0.456, kurtosis of -0.135, and mean of -0.42. The distribution was negatively skewed with left tail and right-leaning peak. Freshmen had the highest proportion of extremely low scores (13.41% below -40 points) compared to sophomores (5.00%). Juniors showed 18.18% but with only 11 samples, lacking statistical significance. No extremely low scores appeared in senior or graduate samples.

Freshmen have the strongest temporal connection to high school and experience the least retroactive interference, suggesting their high school impressions are most authentic. However, the cognitive contrast between just-entering college and senior year life may also be strongest. These opposing psychological forces jointly produce lower nostalgia levels, requiring separate examination of each influence.

Using covariance analysis on item 20 (subjective memory authenticity perception, where 3 indicates high perceived authenticity and values toward extremes indicate reduced authenticity) with only freshmen cases, we tested interactions with three covariates (gender, economic region, urban/rural). Q20×Q2, Q20×Eco_District, and Q20×Q4 all showed p > 0.05, indicating homogeneous slopes. Covariance analysis revealed Q20's F-value was only 1.895 (p = 0.112), showing no significant overall effect. However, pairwise comparisons revealed subtle differences: nostalgia scores peaked when Q20 = 3 and decreased toward both extremes. Q20 = 5 differed slightly but significantly from values 2 and 3. Conclusion: Freshmen who subjectively perceive higher memory authenticity show higher nostalgia; those who believe their memories are better or worse than reality show lower nostalgia, especially those believing memories are better than reality.

Memory is always retrospectively constructed; subjective authenticity isn't objective fact. More reliable may be "flashbulb moments": deepest traumas cannot be recalled in the present but remain contested and redefined; most joyful expressions haven't yet faded from faces. For freshmen, traumas haven't become past, and the future hasn't truly arrived, conditionally making redemption impossible in the present. Qualitative Q23 responses show these stellar moments undergo bold recreation in subjective impression, while texts reflecting subjective authenticity show purer, more朴素 attitudes, primarily characterized by three themes: friendship, youth, and calmer reflection:

1. "It's youth that has nothing."
2. "One cannot simultaneously possess youth and the feeling of youth."
3. "High school friends, regardless of emotional depth or trust, naturally have incomparable advantages. I think this is why many miss high school, but really, it's just the temporal position high school occupies. Your friends, lovers appeared there, coincidentally."
4. "We all formed deep bonds, moving forever toward our goals. There were sisters, fellow fans, good friends, every classmate, and the someone who made my heart race."
5. "It's the pursuit of past certainty, nostalgia for known things."
6. "Looking back at high school from college, though seeing much immaturity, I still gain insights and growth."

These six examples correspond to the three themes. The writing shows "autumn-winter tranquility" contrasting with more lyrical texts. Beyond the reflective third theme, the first two themes are calmer than other writings on the same topics. Other texts show more stream-of-consciousness, intense expression:

1. "During the post-Gaokao summer, I thought I'd hold her hand, stand on the ancient city wall facing the high school gate, stab each other, and fall together like mud... My eyes would dry first, I'd blink frequently; my head would fill with blood, limbs turn cold; my scarred arms would tremble; my stomach would cramp; I'd struggle to breathe from oxygen deprivation; I'd feel my heart excitedly bloodthirsty."

2. "To me, that former high school died long ago."

Such recollections are more意识流, saturated, trembling. Compared to them, the former writing seems like looking back from a more distant time. The scroll compresses under telephoto lens, space flattens, and ontology gradually disappears. This writing paradigm naturally transitions to statistical results from higher grades. Grade growth brings the future's arrival, and true memory occurs—along with redemption.

Though reality doesn't follow our derived "more distant retrospection-redemption" logic, higher-grade participants rarely score extremely low, which is common among freshmen. The calmness growing with temporal distance is evident. Discontinuities in junior and senior samples may stem from small sample sizes or other factors requiring further discussion.

Regarding memory authenticity, it's difficult to say whether we share a synchronic memory division—where as group members we retain minimal memories, and piecing together enough might yield a global picture. Whether our history is "fair and open" remains questionable. Do we each experience consistent high school situations? We hold reservations: facing huge regional education disparities, constructing a unified "Chinese high school" memory is difficult, as the concept itself is internally contradictory. We call these separately constructed different historical possibilities the third discussion point below.

3.1.3 College Students' Nostalgia Relates to Geographic Region

Once regional basic education gaps are clear, this conclusion becomes inevitable. Examining the scatter plot by economic region, results are clear (Northeast samples are too few, likely statistical error). As economic development level increases, so does average nostalgia. However, we cannot simply equate regional economic development with high school education quality. Gao Bingcheng and Chen Ruping (2013) quantified high school education level through four indicators: educational opportunity, conditions, quality, and equity, noting that while economic development improves overall high school education levels and conditions, it doesn't necessarily promote equity—urban-rural gaps may remain significant even in economically developed provinces.

However, this classification has an obvious flaw: household registration status doesn't strongly correlate with high school location. An alternative method classifies by Gaokao paper type. Participants from three municipalities using self-developed papers show the highest composite nostalgia levels. These three municipalities also rank top three in Li Dexian and Wei Xingang's (2018) comprehensive high school education development index.

Examining the heatmap of paper type, composite nostalgia score intervals, and mean high school education levels, education levels are lower in National Paper II, Paper A, and Paper B regions, with correspondingly lower nostalgia. Outside National Paper I regions, nostalgia positively correlates with high school education level.

National Paper I regions are special. These eight provinces have relatively high education levels (Guangdong, Hunan, Hebei somewhat weaker), and students should be more nostalgic. Yet excluding these three provinces, other higher-education provinces show lower nostalgia tendencies. Jiangsu is particularly irregular, with nostalgia scores distributed across intervals. Analyzing Jiangsu samples' nostalgia causes through linear modeling reveals five most important predictors, with "living in college is more exhausting than high school" as the primary factor.

High school's "ease" manifests in purity and companionship. "Purity" signifies both focus (especially on studies) and the forward trajectory of routinized life. Companionship comes from multiple sources: teachers, classmates, parents—classmates being most frequently mentioned. Correspondingly, college's "exhaustion" appears in complexity and loneliness. Numerous affairs, complex relationships, and emotional entanglements constitute the "wilderness," with loneliness forming a contradictory pair.

These conclusions are based on incomplete statistics; the 0.1 coefficient lacks substantial statistical significance. Anecdotally, Jiangsu is a "schizophrenic" province with vast educational condition gaps between northern and southern regions. The authors' location in the transitional zone intensifies this fragmentation: outwardly waving the banner of quality education while inwardly clinging to the so-called "county high school model," even publicly providing related videos for study. Jiangsu's rising high school suicide rate may stem significantly from this internal contradiction.

3.2 Inter-Item Relationships

Network analysis of all scale items reveals clear positive and negative correlations. Strongest positive correlations: Q5-Q6, Q12-Q13, Q15-Q16. Secondary positive correlations: Q5-Q7, Q10-Q22, Q11-Q13, Q14-Q17, Q16-Q17. Negative correlations primarily: Q19-Q20, with secondary: Q6-Q21, Q10-Q19, Q15-Q20 (reverse-scored items were reversed).

These suggest four highly probable propositions: (1) Time with high school classmates is especially memorable; (2) Utilitarian attitudes in college make interpersonal emotions indifferent; (3) College students' high school regrets center particularly on not cherishing time; (4) The more beautiful subjective high school life was, the more confused about college life. Their validity requires more careful research.

Centrality analysis shows Q5 dominates in strength centrality. In closeness centrality, understanding Q17 ("I'd rather return to high school") quickly reveals other nostalgia elements. In betweenness centrality, Q17 also holds importance. In total influence, Q5, Q13, Q14, Q16, and Q17 show high expected influence values, consistent with factor analysis conclusions.

3.3 Descriptive Statistics of Individual Items

Simple descriptive statistics show Q6 has the highest mean score (4.29), confirming the dominance of missing classmates. Q17's lower score shows the gap between memory and re-experience. The last three items all score low, indicating generally high subjective memory authenticity and clear college-high school differentiation.

Q16 and Q22 show large variance, suggesting participants differ significantly in how much they cherished high school time, with some participants' college and high school experiences being similar while others differ greatly.

4. Conclusions and Implications

4.1 Summary of Conclusions

Our measurement results show college students' composite nostalgia scores correlate with gender, grade, and region. Additionally, inter-item correlations exist, with some items showing significant mean and variance differences.

Regarding gender, male college students are generally more nostalgic for high school than females. Keyword extraction shows females focus more on study-related, pragmatic content, while males are more "romantic." However, this isn't merely subjective—widespread discriminatory treatment of female students by teachers and schools also shifts female attention to these perpetrators. For male nostalgia, we offer two attributions: Zeigarnik effect regarding uncompleted "likes," and the emergence of rational economic agents in college who succeed paternal authority.

Freshmen show the lowest nostalgia across grades, influenced by two opposing inhibitions at this time: proactive and retroactive interference. Among freshmen, those with higher subjective memory authenticity show higher nostalgia. "Flashbulb moments" may undergo bold recreation rather than reflecting "authentic" memory, while attitudes reflecting subjective authenticity appear purer and more朴素, correlating with freshmen's lowest nostalgia. As grades increase, temporal distance grows, telephoto compression intensifies, and future redemption occurs, invisibly raising nostalgia levels.

Regional analysis is complex. Due to questionnaire oversights, urban-rural conclusions are difficult. However, outside National Paper I regions, students from higher high school education level areas show higher nostalgia. National Paper I regions are special; using Jiangsu as an example, "living in college is more exhausting than high school" shapes different nostalgia levels.

Network analysis of different items yields four hypotheses requiring verification: (1) Time with high school classmates is especially memorable; (2) Utilitarian attitudes in college make interpersonal emotions indifferent; (3) College students' high school regrets center on not cherishing time; (4) The more beautiful subjective high school life was, the more confused about college life. All four show high possibility of being true.

Finally, individual item scores suggest: (1) Missing classmates dominates nostalgia (consistent with network analysis); (2) College students generally have high subjective memory authenticity; (3) Most colleges differ significantly from high schools; (4) Students vary greatly in how much they cherished high school time.

4.2 Limitations, Implications, and Future Directions

This study shows many naive and insufficient aspects. Questionnaire (especially scale) wording was casual, with serious logical errors hindering some research. No pilot test was conducted to verify reliability and validity. Sampling was flawed: Jiangsu samples were excessive while other provinces were insufficient, freshmen were overrepresented while other grades were underrepresented, causing omissions. Many statistical methods were misapplied, with necessary conditions (especially normal distribution) largely ignored. Some low-probability events were treated as conclusions, with inadequate theoretical analysis.

Implications target two groups: high schools and teachers, and college students. For college students, this report clarifies aspects of high school nostalgia to help establish new life orientations and forward-moving courage. For high school-related groups, this report clarifies graduates' nostalgia situations and causes, extracting areas needing humanistic care improvements, hoping to encourage high school educators to change work methods and improve comprehensive quality.

Based on this study, urban-rural nostalgia differences need examination, and the eight hypotheses from network and single-item analysis require verification or falsification, awaiting future research.

Postscripts

Postscript 1
"That is a strange intertwinement of time and space, a unique appearance of the distant that can no longer be brought closer." — Walter Benjamin (2023: 15)

It's hard to describe what kind of high school I experienced, and what kind of college I'm experiencing in this semester plus few days. "All that is solid melts into air" (Marx & Engels, 2018: 31)—this deconstructive, even floating phrase could prophecy postmodern society's symptoms. As I wrote in the main text, Jiangsu, especially central Jiangsu's high schools, exist in profound internal contradiction. On one hand, as components of Jiangsu's huge economy, like southern Jiangsu, they should be covered by the most advanced educational concepts. Undeniable radiation exists, with "quality education" being personalized into various grand educational philosophies. However, Gaokao's lack of essential protection, backward educational concepts in teaching staff, leaders' pursuit of political achievements... (dozens of reasons could be listed) almost everything in Jiangsu (especially central Jiangsu) unnecessarily shrouds the region in "county high school model" shadow. The bright, comprehensive development of morality, intelligence, physical health, aesthetics, and labor contrasts so sharply with the reality I need not depict, leaving development goals fragmented.

Fortunately, this phase has become past for me, or like a bursting event, quietly slipping away at its generation. In that trace, in that original statement, something siren-like rises toward every passerby like me, an aura. My so-called "subjective authentic memory" is a similar product: you may notice no simple "objective authenticity" corresponds in the main text—just as Benjamin discussed, is conquering the unique meaningful ("undoubtedly needed")? In plain terms, memory's "objective authenticity" is like making a proponent of "primitive society was communist" really fight domesticated beasts in a zoo—no primitive experience, only forced shattering of illusion, with nothingness inside: unbearable "life."

You can certainly critique this as a "golden age," a worthless "retrotopia" sentiment. Yes, we write various posts (like "want to return to senior year for a couple of days")—this can be seen as performative behavior, an opportunity to construct a liquid community (Huang Jiejie, 2020); or psychoanalytically, as narcissism, even spectating one's "confident, shining self that now seems blinding" (Q23 response). But I maintain a "utopian" attitude: even if schools and memories are alienated, I'm willing to view them as sensuous natural existences (though they may only exist idealistically). I fantasize this subjective memory can be exceptionally suspended and will gloriously return in the future (perhaps decades later? The day facing the firing squad?), achieving final redemption for the essayist. These time fragments shine like stars—they are simply the most crystal-clear, not-of-this-world, ascended, non-Messianic-judged true stars.

Of course, you can forcefully regress: "Humans never truly have a home, so no path home exists" (Zhang Yibing, 2022: 133). Nostalgia is then regressed to homesickness's source, and the subject's erasure makes home nonexistent. Yet we still hope to find a growth trace, though it may be the Other filling and shaping your empty pseudo-subject. This isn't "desperate measures" but jumping out of Lacan's cold writing to embrace fully expanded present blessings: not "facing the sea, spring blossoms" self-sacrificial prayer, not meaningless discourse woven from ideals and dreams, but my simple, sublimated, warm blessing.

In this sense, nostalgia is forcibly constructed and written by the child's hand beside the furnace. The curtain shifts lightly, actors become audience, only a pool of unrealistic spring water remains on stage. Future observers, see.

Postscript 2
It's hard to precisely delineate high school's position in our lives with words, but the unceasing, cyclical recollections prove it's no static label. It stores individuals' growth periods from青涩 to maturity, perhaps once escorting youthful passion and impulse, perhaps clarifying dreams through shattering and reshaping, perhaps serving as a滞留地 of ultimate truth and goodness.

We constantly contemplate what this nostalgia-like emotion for high school truly is. Though we've investigated from multiple angles, the accurate answer remains unsolved. How would you define high school? I think, beyond mountains of books, materials, and test papers, beyond starlit study paths and moonlit reading lamps, beneath soaring oath banners and glaring countdown signs, something exists that seems dim and blurry now yet shines brightly through long years. Perhaps we should poetically, with self-puzzle-solving blank space, more purely look back at high school time, pursuing our lost fragments, pursuing ourselves.

Transitioning from high school to college, we seem to finish a clear one-way street and suddenly be thrown into boundless life's ocean, temporarily losing direction, inevitably spinning in whirlpools. I've recalled my high school era countless times—it seems so grand and brilliant enough to be called an era, but it's actually the result of layered comparison and beautification, while at the time I prayed daily to climb over the wall.

Now I'm indeed free, yet constantly feel the responsibilities and shackles on me haven't lightened, only changed form. Partners who fought alongside me scatter to the ends of the earth; parents who provided support are left behind in hometown. My freedom is tinted with loneliness, stemming from waving goodbye to the accustomed and even dependent past. Yet all things flow; individuals cannot stand silently in the era's torrent. So, before being blown down or away, we move forward主动. Believe nothing ever leaves, the past never departs, until it becomes your foundation.

Postscript 3
Out of interest and chance, I had the honor to participate in this investigation. When first seeing the questionnaire title, I snickered inwardly. To me then, nostalgia for high school as personal mental activity was whim-based无病呻吟, or Narcissus-like self-boasting; as social phenomenon, it was mainstream discourse's retrospective construction: production system耗材怀念ing the factory that produced them, diverting dissatisfaction from reality, like a pressure cooker occasionally releasing steam. Such居高临下 judgment now seems undoubtedly arbitrary,粗暴, and coldly arrogant.

However, as I deepened understanding and communicated with initiators, I perceived how this literary-themed topic reflects socioeconomic issues and individual care.

As a liberal arts student not particularly skilled at math, I've always微词ed at mathematics methods "stealing the spotlight" in sociological/economic analysis. But in questionnaire text analysis, classmates' extensive use of statistical methods and efficient computer processing amazed me. When refining conclusions, I felt my previous perspective's limitations. Personal experience provided one argument, yet only one argument.

We examine not only vertical differences between high school and college groups but also horizontal differences among samples: subtle gender differences, stark inequality between regions due to economic levels and institutional design; disparities in material living standards and mental cognition. Individuals become vivid, "nostalgia" no longer a chaotic, turbid current but streams of thought with different colors, jumping. High school steps out of the cold gray factory image in critical discourse, recolored in retrospect. From teachers and classmates to metasequoias outside classrooms, even pancake or roasted nut shops outside school... these warm images evoke not just high school nostalgia but the subject's instinctive yearning for vivid life experiences—those moments that make humans human.

Gathering with classmates years later, we spontaneously decided to visit our high school. Meeting our homeroom teacher, we were unsurprisingly dragged to the new senior class 1 to "share experiences." As "seniors" standing at the podium, my classmate earnestly talked about seizing the moment, studying hard, paying attention to college applications and careers, being responsible for oneself, etc. At the back of the classroom, two students, one fat and one thin, whispered and occasionally laughed; by the window, some "study卷王s" buried themselves in vocabulary and homework, disdaining our disturbance; right in front of the podium, a仁兄 was even celebrating escaping a politics spot-check. Of course, most students were earnestly absorbing our "advanced experience." In a trance, I seemed to return to three years ago. It was early autumn 2020, seemingly Teachers' Day. We were in senior class 1, admiring学长学姐on stage,茫然but踌躇满志. Even though high school's main melody was不间断politics memorization torture and repeated math exam humiliation, at that moment, I vividly felt nostalgia for this place. That day I also rattled on a lot, but privately think the only reference-worthy sentence was "eat well, sleep well, maintain good and stable mental state."

Postscript 4
We, we, we.

We—first I think of my high school classmates, either欢脱or倒霉or没头脑不高兴. Second, me and my test papers, homework,辅导books—we're also a命运共同体. Third, me and my high school alma mater. I feel her decline and her century-old traditional elegance remaining.

I was so rich in collective feeling and honor in high school. So rich in direction. Expectation. Desire. Love.

These virtues seem to have a disappearing trend in college, or people around me no longer have such外放characteristics.

So we miss high school. Hey! We don't miss the sadness and repetition of exam-oriented education, nor the后遗症of lacking resources and channels. We don't miss sporadic infighting, though it now seems cute. We miss a possibility.

This possibility means different universities, tiered universities, can change my life. Just this possibility, like a carrot before a donkey, lured us forward. Whether this long promise贯穿my youth has come true now, I've already lost this faith.

I cannot know if the above has universality. Whether statistical conclusions necessarily因果relate. But we are universally confused, universally surging onto the tide and being beaten down. Volcanoes erupt, era's ash falls on everyone, I seem unable to lightly brush it off as if nothing.

Appendix 1: Nostalgia Tendency Scale

Please rate agreement levels for each statement (higher numbers = stronger agreement). When answering, describe overall feelings toward groups (e.g., "teachers," "classmates") rather than individuals.

Appendix 2: Current Situation and Others

Likert-scale items continue the higher-number = stronger agreement pattern; fill-in-the-blank questions allow freer responses.

23. In summary, when we look back at high school today, what exactly are we talking about? Emotion? Friendship, romance, family ties then? Clear self-identity and goals? Or...? Please freely and boundlessly share your thoughts. Perhaps you have something to say to us—write it here. _________

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