<p>Pack light. Everything you take will probably have to be hauled up and down stairs, and then stored (that gets expensive) or taken home every summer and after graduation.</p>
<p>Get to know an advisor, your professors. I was too intimidated to ask for help/advice and got behind and overwhelmed a couple of times. When I finally went to a professor during office hours and confessed my confusion, he reprimanded me for waiting so long. </p>
<p>These professionals are there to advise and teach you. They want to help. Don't lose out because you feel you might be bugging them!</p>
<p>Be safe when it comes to drinking. Use your head, if you go out with friends, leave with those friends. Date rape is a very real thing. Try not to drop to many classes, if you have to take it and you signed up for it then just take it.
Take summer classes</p>
<p>just knowing most of the people your living with are going through the same thing makes it much easier and Im with GodotGirl on the IB thing but that doesnt mean I wont be doing everything I can for my grades. Im just glad IB is overwith</p>
<p>thanks for this.</p>
<p>be prepared for a culture shock to some degree. I went east from the midwest...and woah. People were doing drugs that I didn't even know existed, and people had more sex than I thought even possible. Obviously, you don't have to do anything you don't want to. Just be prepared to meet people whose values are different than your own...and don't judge them for it.</p>
<p>Speaking of realism....</p>
<p>Skip the pill. Get a Depo-Provera shot, or a Minera. Birth control you only have to deal with every 3 months to 2 years is GREAT. Still use condoms STDs are of the not good. Don't sleep with anyone on your floor. And if you're going to drink underage, drink responsibly, quietly, and don't get caught.</p>
<p>I was the first in my family to go to college. I had no advice to get me through. Here's what I had to learn the hard way...</p>
<ol>
<li> Go to class!</li>
<li>even if your hw isn't done</li>
<li>even if you're tired</li>
<li>even if you're hungover</li>
<li>even if it's raining</li>
<li>even if it's sunny</li>
<li>even if the class is easy</li>
<li>even if you hate the class</li>
<li>even if you hate the teacher</li>
<li><p>even if you can't bear to leave the person beside you</p></li>
<li><p>Start your reading assignments on the day you get them and budget your pages so you're finished before the next class/due date. Simple, obvious, but critical. </p></li>
<li><p>Speak to Mom and/or Dad before applying for a credit card.</p></li>
<li><p>Rum and diet coke might reduce your freshman 15 to freshman 10.</p></li>
<li><p>See #1.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>rye and coke, IMO. Rum's gross.</p>
<p>learn to be cool with people who are different:</p>
<p>Gay
Bi
Gothic
Emo
Punk
Jock
Gangsterish</p>
<p>the list continues...</p>
<p>people will seriously not fly with all that hating believe me...</p>
<p>Hey this is all good stuff to know, keep it comming. Any advice (thats reasonable) helps.</p>
<p>College is intense and moves at a furiously quick pace--not necesarily academically, but in general. You'll look back at the end thinking "WHERE DID THE TIME GO?", along with the thought of "Wow, did all of that happen only in the space of three to four months?"</p>
<p>Everything is volatile. One moment, you're on top of the world, and the next moment your life is falling to pieces. The highs are higher and the lows are lower. </p>
<p>The key is to move on. Lost friendships, failed grades, and broken hearts--happen to the best of us, but now more than ever, you don't necessarily have as much time to stop and wallow. Reflect and adjust as much as you can, but at some level you need to just buck up, come up with a new game plan, and plow on. There'll be a break waiting for you at the finish line.</p>
<p>Copy/pasted from a copy and paste of my posts in an old thread.</p>
<p>1) Go to class. AT LEAST the first couple weeks, go to EVERY class. After that you might be able to see that you can skip one or two, but in general, GO TO CLASS!</p>
<p>2) When you're studying actually study. Don't sit in your dorm room half watching TV, half doing physics. You won't learn any physics. If you actually study you'll have time to do other stuff later.</p>
<p>3) Don't just hang out with your old friends/your roommate. Make friends in your hall and in your classes and hang out with them. If you just hang out with your roommate who are you going to complain about your roommate to?</p>
<p>4) Don't be a jerk to your roommate. Set up guidelines on sharing food and stuff, and don't take anything without asking. If you all have an agreed upon set of standards for the TV, visitors and sharing supplies/food everything will go much easier.</p>
<p>5) Exercise. All that cafeteria food and studying can take its toll on your body. Go for a run, lift weights, play football, just do something. Bonus points if you actually join some sort of club or intramural sport.</p>
<p>6) Meet a lot of new people. Leave your door open when you're in your room and don't be afraid to strike up a conversation with someone before or after class. The more friends you have the better your experience is going to be.</p>
<p>7) Don't get too into the partying scene. Have fun, but don't start going out five nights a week or anything. You have to know when to work, and when not to work. Friday night, you aren't bumping up on any deadlines or tests? Go have a good time. Saturday night, final you haven't studied for on Monday morning? Study.</p>
<p>8.) GO TO CLASS.</p>
<p>9) Talk to your professors, especially if they're in your major. Go to their office hours and ask questions on anything you're not positive about. Most professors like students that do stuff like that, and will help them out. Also you get contacts/recommendations. The professors here bent the rules for me BIG time and let me transfer into my college within the university because I knew two of the three that could make the decision.</p>
<p>10) Keep healthy/clean. Eat some decent food (vegetables and fruits) and take a vitamin. Now's a great time to stop drinking pop and start drinking water. Keep your clothes and room fairly clean, you never know when you're going to have somebody over. Wash your sheets every once and a while too.</p>
<p>11) Call your parents every once and a while. They're probably paying for you to go there so it's nice to let them know you're still alive, especially if you call sometimes NOT asking for money. With my parents at least, they bug me less when I give them a weekly or so call then when I fall off the face of the earth to them for a month.</p>
<p>12) Try some new stuff. I'm not talking about drugs and whatever (Don't do drugs, you'll get kicked out of the dorms and all kinds of other bad stuff), but if you're the type of person who's sort of quiet and doesn't go out much, try going to a party. Try new food. Play a new sport. Go to a play. Just do SOMETHING new. It keeps life interesting and gives you something to talk about.</p>
<p>13) Don't go home every weekend. Don't go home every other weekend. About twice every three months works out pretty well. I tend to not go back unless there's something big happening. There's plenty of fun stuff to do on campus, and you'll end up missing a lot if you're just home watching your mom do your laundry.</p>
<p>14) GO TO CLASS.</p>
<p>15) Have fun. Really, you've got the oppurtunity to make college whatever you want to. Want to be a huge partier? You can. Want to stay locked in the library all day? You can. Want to live healthier? You can. You are actually going to be making real decisions that really effect who you are as a person every day. Just remember to keep everything in moderation and you'll be alright.</p>
<p>About scheduling:
You know if you're a morning person or not. If you are then you should get your classes out of the way early. Some people can do 8ams, some can't. If you can't do NOT sign up for them, you will skip.</p>
<p>Make sure you leave time to eat lunch. Class from 10:30 - 2:30 might get the day over with quicker, but you'll be ready to eat your notes by the time 2 rolls around. If worst comes to worst take a sandwich and eat it between classes.</p>
<p>Try not to take any evening classes on fridays. Evening classes are generally fine, especially if you only have one or you're not planning on getting a job, but having one on friday makes it harder to go out and do stuff, or to take weekend trips, or go home or whatever. Just try to get out of class as early as you can on friday. In my experience there are fewer classes on friday anyway, with way more M/W or T/TH than two day classes that meet on friday.</p>
<p>If you live pretty far off campus try to get all your classes together. If you can't and you have a large block between classes stay on campus and use that time to study. You'll be wasting a lot of time and gas driving back and forth.</p>
<p>If you're on campus you have a bit more flexibility. Some professors do run over. If you have one that has a tendency to do that talk to him after class one day and just inform him you might have to duck out right at the classes ending time to get to your next class. He shouldn't care. You COULD schedule huge blocks of classes and get them all over with, but then sometimes you're racing across campus over and over. Just try to avoid having just a half hour between classes, since then you'll be getting back to your room just in time to leave again. If you do have an hour or so you could just go to the library and study. Time management is key.</p>
<p>I've found ratemyprofessor to be pretty inaccurate at times. If a professor has a LOT of reviews that all say basically the same thing then it might be worth listening to, but two or three reviews generally don't mean anything. If you can, talk to students that have had professors before. This is easier to do when scheduling for second semester and beyond, but if you've got older friends that go to that college you can ask them. You can also use facebook to try and find people. The professor you have makes a HUGE difference in many classes, enough of one to justify taking an 8am over an 11am just to get a certain professor. Trust me.</p>
<p>Try not to schedule too much of one thing on one day. Split up your math classes or labs or whatever if you can, especially labs. Having two labs on one day would be a very draining experience, so don't if you can avoid it.</p>
<p>Schedule classes with friends if you can. You can study together and keep eachother on your toes when it comes to test dates or whatever.</p>
<p>Only use online classes if that is the only way it is offered, or if you're extremely motivated, or if the class is not in your actual field (just taking it to satisfy a university requirement) and you've talked to a lot of people that have said it is easy. It's easy to forget to do stuff when you don't have an actual classroom to go to, and it really becomes annoying to keep up with everything.</p>
<p>PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT COURSES YOU HAVE TO TAKE, AND DO NOT BELIEVE A SINGLE WORD YOUR ADVISOR EVER SAYS! This one came back to almost kill me.</p>
<p>To folks who are both asking for and dispensing advice:</p>
<p>I'm working at an internship for Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and we're looking for submissions for our "Teens Talk Getting Into College" book. If you want to write some of this advice down for our book, or write a story about your college application process, you could get paid up to $200. Submit your stories on Chicken</a> Soup for the Soul. You can also check out our facebook page: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=17234930259%5B/url%5D">http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=17234930259</a> for more info.</p>
<p>Call your parent(s) once in a while. We miss you and want to hear about this new part of your lives.</p>
<p>Don't take too much stuff to your dorm. They are smaller than you realize.</p>
<p>here's the link from the thread i started last year about this...lot of good stuff!
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/376631-advice-class-11-a.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/376631-advice-class-11-a.html</a></p>
<p>Don't create a "fantasy persona" which amounts to you bragging about impossible things about you in high school. Just be yourself, and people will like you. Trying to be something you're not just gets you into a lot of hot water--and people end of up ridiculing and hating you.</p>
<p>I hate to say that I learned this lesson the hard way and had to teach it to two suitemates during my sophomore year.</p>
<p>Speaking of not bringing too much stuff to your dorm....make sure you communicate with your roommates before you get to school about who's bringing what. If you're going far away, it sucks when all 3 roommates show up with microwaves but nobody has a mini-fridge. Happened to my brother haha.</p>
<p>Don't. get. a. credit. card.</p>
<p>If you speak with your parents about getting one to pay for books or something to build up good credit, that's different. Don't sign up for one just to get the free stuff, or to use regularly if you don't need it. You'd think people would know that but apparently they keep signing up!</p>
<p>What about a debit card? Has anyone had trouble being responsible with one or is it not that hard of a thing to learn?</p>