<p>twighlight_girl, I’ll share with you a few tips about <em>really</em> being successful in college. The generic response to success in college is being able to balance time and money. Realize that this is extremely true. Lack of time management skills is what have crushed many college students and not being able to manage your money well definitely exacerbate the problem. Total Cost of attendance in college is quite expensive. I’m not sure about UCR but Syracuse is now over 50,000. Imagine that and still needing to manage a certain amount of spending money.
If I were you I would start by becoming familiar with the classes you’re taking well before school starts, purchase text books early, look into where you would like to work for campus jobs and apply as soon as possibl, and find an organizer where you can jot down upcoming homework assignments, meetings, advising, work, and other things. Believe me, you will soon find out that college isn’t necessarily tough because of the academics. It is balancing everything out early so you won’t get burned out quickly. I’d also say don’t worry because freshman year is the year to make your mistakes but if you can avoid them by planning ahead then by all means do it.</p>
<p>If you’re worried, try getting some of Cal Newport’s books and read his blog and get in the habit of doing some of his suggestions before starting college (the few suggestions that don’t actually require classes, like how to organize your schedule)</p>
<p>I’ve found this has helped me out quite a bit.</p>
<p>However, if college were as hard as you seem to think it is, I’m sure there wouldn’t be as many people as there are graduating from various colleges every year. Yes, it requires some effort but it isn’t impossible.</p>
<p>^ I definitely second Cal Newport’s Study Hacks. It’s an amazing blog, although I haven’t read any of his books.</p>
<p>this thread ruined cc for me.</p>
<p>How is this thread worse than some of the other ones?</p>
<p>College isn’t that hard. The main things that affect how tough it is are:
whre you went to high school
where you go to college
what classes you take</p>
<p>If you went to a horrible public hihg school and are taking upper level courses at MIT you will probalby fail. If you went to Exeter and are at Auburn taking intro courses you’ll probably get A+s with your eyes closed. UCR isn’t that tough of a school, but it might be tough if your hihg school dind’t prepare you well</p>
<p>Thirding the Cal Newport recs! I should have listened to more of his suggestions my freshman year, haha.</p>
<p>all nighters every night…lol</p>
<p>omgsh! im so nervous for college. im the first in my family to go to college so alot of people are expecting alot from me. i plan on having fun though! & definitly hitting the books every night. i am worried about the workload & stuff. overall, i cant wait!</p>
<p>“It’s biologically impossible to do that every night because if you did that, it means that you would NEVER SLEEP”</p>
<p>Thought someone would will major in biology would have known that already.</p>
<p>depends on ur major and ur college</p>
<p>College is seriously not that hard. Millions of people have done it before. Millions more will do it.</p>
<p>In Twilight Girl’s defense, all-nighters every night are indeed possible if she sleeps during the day after classes, becoming a vampire of sorts…(no pun intended 
).</p>
<p>Speaking of, I can’t believe I wasted a DVD burning Twilight. That was the single worst movie I’ve ever seen.</p>
<p>Speaking of Twilight, that guy who plays the vampire (edward) and was in harry potter has been filming at NYU lately making it a b!tch to get to class…there’s like throngs of fangirls everywhere, stalking the poor fella…another reason to dislike Twilight :p</p>
<p>Twilight Girl - stop worrying, enjoy your summer, relax and have fun, and you’ll probably be really excited for college in the fall! And unless you’re studying rocket science or something, it’s not gonna be ridiculously hard. You’ll have so much free time.</p>
<p>Wow, that must suck. I’d go crazy if I had to deal with a bunch of screaming twelve year-olds everyday. I didn’t even know he was over here.</p>
<p>Plane lands. It’s beaming in LA. Super shuttle is waiting for me and parents. Palm trees and cute women are everywhere in LAX. Good vibes. </p>
<p>Ten minutes later we’re on campus. Everyone looks oddly excited and tense. Heartrate goes crazy. This will be epic. </p>
<p>Start unpacking room. Get two calls from people from orientation. As I’m doing this kid cruises past my room and we start talking. He will end up being my best friend. His sister already goes to school here and they are going to the 9-0 that night. Some crazy bar, tells me that i’ve gotta go with him once school starts and I get an id. Nice.</p>
<p>Parents are off campus after unpacking all day and greeting everyone that cruises by my room, my roommate hasn’t arrived yet, but I know I’ve already talked to him. I meet up with people from previous orientation and proceed to dormstorm the first night meeting as many people as possible with a rowdy group of like 6 guys that grows to about 20 people by the time we are leaving the building picking up more people. Grab two girls numbers. Crash early because everyone starts moving in tommorow.</p>
<p>Parents are back, we do the whole shopping thing and get back on campus. HUNDREDS of people outside my dorm, thousands on campus. Immediately get to work helping people move in, there are so many hot girls to remember. Each second continues to get better. See close friend from orientation and tell him where everyone else is at, introduce him to a group of people. We all start making plans for tonight. Discover an event called PRE RUSH, two nights where all frats are open for everyone to come in and see what frats are about. Sounded awesome. </p>
<p>It is sometime around 2-3 AM. Awesome was a complete understatement. Group of people I’m with staggering to dorms. Essentially crawl up stairs with people. Three kids run by speaking some form of advanced babble. </p>
<p>Parents are leaving today. Say goodbye, absolutely no feelings of regret whatsoever being across the country. Tonight is final night of pre rush, but day is filled with more free events, free stuff, and arranged meetings of people in major/dorm/school. More cute girls.
This is beginning to seem like some sort of trick.</p>
<p>Pre Rush night two. Not much to comment about, “misplaced” many memories of this night.</p>
<p>First day of classes. Walk into French classes. Yes.</p>
<p>There are four guys. There are 11 girls, almost all of which look amazing. French immediately becomes my second favorite language. Sit next to one and introduce myself. She ends up saving my ass and getting me to the final at the right time for the Final. Guy beside me is almost five years older than me. Ends it becoming close friend and essential connect.</p>
<p>It’s three months later. Mid terms are ending. Roommate and I are like brothers. Floor is like extended family. Go to halloween in Santa barbara with hall mate and best friend. 90k+ people on Island of only college kids. Absurd. Me and friends and up crashing between combination of random girls friend knew and some dudes my friend met. </p>
<p>Continue to go camping in the desert, road trip, go to the mountains, whatever I please whenever I please. Workload is manageable. Constantly happy that I’m not an engineer/scientist. </p>
<p>Christmas is here. Seems like it came as fast as these broken sentences. Second semester doesn’t start for a month. Leaving sucks. </p>
<p>Second semester is more epic.</p>
<p>That’s not nearly as detailed as it should be, a lot I couldn’t remember if I tried lol. College is excellent.</p>
<p>My experience was like that, but being an engineer, cut out about half those, unfortunately. No French class for me :(</p>
<p>However, being in marching band, add about twice that amount of awesome experiences centered around being a band member. Nothing like walking through campus on a Gameday Saturday morning in full uniform, getting offers of “Hey, come party with us!” from every other tailgate.</p>
<p>haha, you guys scared the poor girl away… she hasn’t posted since the first page.</p>
<p>haha, I wasn’t scared. I was just busy with summer school. Thanks for all the posts!</p>
<p>It’s not that hard.</p>
<p>But then again, I came from a very competitive high school.</p>