College is an experience like no other. I went 3,000 miles away from home for school not knowing anyone. I wasn’t the only one who felt like this, but I still had a completely different expectation of college. Now I’m about to enter my junior year with two years experience under my belt.
Here are some key tips I wish I knew my freshman year of college.
“What was the hardest thing you had to learn or overcome when you started college that you had not planned for?”
51 Ways To Get A Head Start On College…
- Be Disciplined- Go to sleep and wake up on time for class. You don’t want to spend a string of five or six days locked in sleep debt trying to go through your daily routine.
- Get involved on campus- You need to develop relationships and make college your home away from home.
- DO NOT OVERPACK! It will be a hassle to pack up and head back home. You don’t want to end up shipping everything back home. Your T.V, ladder, and earth globe can stay put. Practice a minimalist lifestyle.
- Establish communication with your roommates and suite mates- you want to feel comfortable and have an open environment in your dorm. My freshman year roommate was fine because we were both student athletes and understood our schedules.
- Clean your room! Mommy and Daddy won’t be there to remind you or do it for you. Last year, I lived with 4 other dudes and we shared a bathroom and a kitchen. Make a cleaning schedule!
- Consider getting a part time job on campus. It can relate to your major, or be a “warm body job” where they allow you to read and get homework done. I worked at the NYU Fitness Center since I was a student athlete. It was easy to head to work right after practice; a job also teaches time management. Other people may choose to work at the library to get work done. I have a friend who is a Music Technology/Comp Sci double major and he works around the computer labs.
- Find a trustworthy group of friends. Odds are at the university you go to, everyone will be lost and will want to make friends the first week to avoid feeling alone. You’ll want to be around a solid group of people to explore your college with. Safety first.
- Build a relationship with your professors! You don’t have to try too hard to be too annoying to talk to them; just ask questions and ATTEND OFFICE HOURS! A lot of your professors will be interesting, I had a Professor for a core class that was nearly 60 years old and he was into video games: Fallout 4 PS4. Another one of my friends’ professor let him take his final exam in the dining hall because he wasn’t able to make the prior exam time. I sat next to them as he worked on his exam, and when the dining hall was set to close the Professor said: “it’s okay we can finish the exam at the McDonalds across the street.”
- Get out there on campus and talk to the other freshmen! During my first week at NYU, one student just hung out in the student lounge and said hi to people. Everyone knew him the rest of the year.
- Leave your door open while you set up your room. This’ll let people know that you’re welcome to chat and hang out.
- Take the time to study in the library. The dorm will eventually become a distraction. You’re more likely to just browse Facebook and Youtube instead of studying when you’re in the dorm.
- It’s okay to feel homesick, it happens to everyone. Don’t let it overtake you.
- Actually take notes and pay attention during large lectures and class! You’re paying for these classes so go put in the work and learn. I had some large lectures during my Economics classes, and I’m serious to tell you: everyone would be on their laptops searching up Buzzfeed articles or watching cat videos in the middle of a lecture while the Professor told us what would be on the Midterm.
- You have to take an active approach to college, this means: asking for help, getting a tutor, write notes as you read the material, ask questions and participate (some classes count participation as a grade take this seriously; you don’t want to be one percent off from a grade and think “what if I participated more”).
- Use the school gym. It’s provided for you with your tuition. You can meet new people who work there, or get involved in athletics/intermural sports.
- Learn how to cook. It saves you money and you can manage your meal plan better.
- Actually cook healthy food: ask your roommate to organize which cooking utensils to bring ex: rice cooker (cheap), pan for cooking eggs (cheap), boiling pot to make pasta.
- Don’t want to learn how to use the kitchen and stove? No problem. If your dorm comes with a microwave, buy some tortillas and cheese. Boom. Theres your quesadilla. You don’t have to be Gordon Ramsay if you want to save money.
- Plan ahead to make sure you register for the correct classes. Make the perquisites a priority. Be the first one to register for your classes when you receive your time slot.
- Use ratemyprofessor.com so you don’t trap yourself into a class with a low rated professor.
- During the first two or three weeks of school, explore which college groups/clubs interest you. Don’t feel pressured to stay around them if they don’t fit you. Focus on yourself. College is about improving yourself, not pleasing other people.
- Create a morning routine to get you fired up for the day. Place your alarm clock on the other side of the room to force you to wake up, and go take a light run/walk and finish off with a cold shower. COLD!
- Talk with your roommate about sleeping schedules/when to study and do homework etc.
- If you have trouble with time management make a to-do list on your iPhone. It’s a simple solution, and it reminds me which priorities I have to complete during the day. I make a concise, simple to-do list every night before I sleep.
- Take the time to explore the city your campus is in. A lot of universities reside near Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Iowa, Philadelphia, or New York.
- Check out the campus social events/meet ups during the first week. Trust me. Nearly every student is lost and doesn’t want to admit they need to find some friends.
- Remember the names of the friends you make. “A person’s name is the sweetest sound.” -Dale Carnegie
- Start making rough drafts of your resume. It’s important to put in the effort of meeting with your career counselor at your school. The people there are literally paid to help you improve your resume. This’ll set you up for your future job search.
- Don’t be afraid to try new things or a new class that you’re interested in. This is the time to explore and get out of your comfort zone. Yes I have repeated myself saying “get out of your comfort zone” many times so you get the point.
- Stay true to your core beliefs and values. You don’t want to go through college having strangers telling you what to do or how to live your life. College is a time to explore, but don’t wander into the dark without a light.
- Take care of yourself and do the easy things: buy Vitamin C Emergency Packs, buy Cough Drops (I think of them as Cough Candy), and drink plenty of water.
- If you feel alone or need help talk to your RA! It’s not a scary thing, these advisors are also College Students and they’ve likely gone through the feelings you may have.
- Get into the habit of regularly checking your student e-mail. In high school, it was fine if you didn’t check your email because it was probably filled with spam. However, in college, your email is how your professors communicate with you. Your email is how the university sends you updates about campus events. Don’t let your inbox overflow. I’ve seen students Gmail screen on their phones sometimes holding up to 500+ unread emails!
- Synchronize each class syllabus you get with your phone calendar. Set an alarm in your calendar one week in advance for when you have projects due.
- It may sound elementary, but take the time to list out a brief description of your goals for the upcoming semester. Set these goals high. You’ll be surprised at which goals you accomplish (or which ones you came close to) when you look back at them after the semester.
- A lot of professors have different ways they like to grade essays. Talk to them and ask to submit rough drafts so you can learn what exactly they’re looking for. This is another benefit of attending office hours
- The library isn’t the only place to be productive. If the library is crowded, visit these places instead of wasting 35 minutes looking for a study space: a local cafe or separate student study lounge, empty classrooms (helps you get used to test environment), nearby parks.
- Don’t leave your laptop and stuff by itself when you leave your study spot to go to the bathroom. People will steal it.
- Get your textbooks early and don’t buy them from the campus bookstore. The campus bookstore puts an insane price on books you can otherwise find from a friend, online, or an outside book store down the street.
- Keep an open eye to the free or really cheap campus wide clubs/adventures. Examples: Snowboarding Club Winter Break Ski Trip in Colorado, Video Game Club, Filipino Club, Freedom Tower Trip.
- Take advantage of the bus service/free public transportation your university offers. This’ll be different for each university, but these things exist and it’ll help. For example, theres an NYU dorm located 30 blocks uptown from campus. The dorm supervisors give each student a free subway metro card.
- Take advantage of the stress reliever activities your school offers. I regularly get emails from NYU stating that there giving out free massages at the gym during finals week, or invite students to hang out with a bunch of puppies to relax. Personally, me and my teammate enjoy the weekly “Chips and Guac” study breaks that happen in our dorm. Free tortilla chips and guacamole. That is all.
- Take advantage of the free entertainment that your campus may offer. Some schools offer HBO service during the 4 years that you are enrolled. Be smart with this. NYU decided to give its students HBO service a couple of days before Finals Week…and advertised this.
- Be careful letting your new friends borrow things. All of the new students will mostly likely have trouble adjusting to college life. Everyone’s priorities will be out of whack for a while.
- Use wolfram alpha.com and derivative-calculator.net to prevent you from destroying your laptop out of anger when your Calculus homework gets too hard. These websites walk you through the solutions step-by-step if you’re lost.
- You don’t need to join a frat or sorority if it’s not your thing. College is all about your decisions, and this can be a curse of a blessing. You can meet a bunch of other people in different ways.
- Understand that some of your friends will change after the first couple of weeks. This is natural, as everyone will be friendly with each other to avoid feeling homesick.
- Be prepared for a diverse student body. There’ll be all kinds of perspectives and life choices that happen in college. A lot of kids will spend their first year drinking. If that’s not your thing it’s not a big deal, but don’t go out of your way to bring others down because they don’t match up to your view on life.
- If you want to make a change for yourself, now is the time to do it. You’re about to meet a whole bunch of people who have no idea who you are.
- If you want to study abroad in the future, start planning out your schedule with your advisors. You want to stay on track so studying abroad doesn’t become a hassle.
- Call your mama.