Don't drink too much.
Take at least one class a semester that you don't have to, that just sounds cool.
Network. It's just as important to work afterwards as the actual degree.
Remember the 1,3,5 rule:Minimum of 1 Shower a day, 2 Meals a day, 5 hours of sleep a day.
Showing up to a party for a couple of hours and then going to study again is a doable thing.
If you have six weeks for a project, start with no less then 5 weeks to go.

--
-Pasha
What was that feeling again?
Oh yes.
-Rage-

Go in with a PLAN. It doesn't have to be the plan you keep, but having a plan gives you something against which to weigh what classes are useful to you. Starting at a junior college? Find transfer catalogs for the four-year schools you want to attend. They'll help you avoid taking classes that will not benefit you.

Disregard what I said above. Don't be afraid to take a few classes just because they interest you! Set aside some elective hours for personal growth, besides chasing your major(s). You may never get the chance to try some of these things again!

Make friends with the faculty. You could possibly learn more in a professor's office than you may in a classroom. Also, these people tend to love what they do, and motivated people make their jobs worth doing. These could be future letters of recommendation, in the making.

Study groups. Seriously, get alpha, and track down the motivated ones in your classes. If you find some, study together! "If you want to master something, teach it".

Check out your college's honors societies. Many honors societies have benefits accessible only to members, such as scholarships, or travel opportunities. eighty or one hundred dollars here could save you potentially thousands down the road.

Abuse your phys-ed facility privileges. Cardio, crosstraining, yoga, swimming, whatever. Get the blood moving, and make it more efficient at carrying oxygen.

Critical: Don't beat yourself up over small failures! Accept them, learn from them, use what you've learned to make yourself better the next time.

That's about it. Congrats on taking the plunge! Good luck!

----
Now Playing:
Soundgarden -- Outshined (Badmotorfinger, 1991)

...

< THIS SPACE FOR RENT >

Be prepared for your outlook, and so the direction of your life, to change. Go with it.

Feed yourself well. If you get the opportunity, learn to cook good food (including fruit and veg) for yourself. Ramen is not good food.

Look out for your mental health. If you need to get help, get help and don't feel like that's something you should be ashemed to do.

This will be just about the last time in your life it's acceptable to drink before lunchtime on a 'work' day. Savour it.

I'll reiterate the advice about taking at least a few classes that 'simply don't apply'. If you're going to a liberal arts school, you HAVE to take so many out of major classes. But a close examination of the course offerings can dig up gems that count towards your liberal arts requirements other than the ones everyone else takes, just to get them out of the way.

Check out the campus organizations. The odds are your leisure time activities are at least in some way covered. Can be a great way to find a social group you might actually be interested in joining. :) In other words, yes, the degree and a future job are important things to keep in the back of your mind, but all work and no play makes Johny potentially pre-psychotic.

Brian

Seriously, the only way you know who you are is by failing at being someone else. It might cost you a year or two, but it pans out for the best in the end.

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

Also, make sure you eat a balanced diet. One of my old teachers once told me about a former pupil of his who went to Glasgow University. The boy wanted to spend as much money on alcohol as possible, so he sat down and worked out how many porridge oats he'd need if he was to have three meals of porridge a day. Once he'd worked out how much he'd need, he went out and bought it. By the end of the term, he'd become well known throughout the university as Glasgow's first case of scurvy in over a century. That example of what not to do may be a bit extreme, but hopefully you get my point.

---

Wait until you are finished with college before buying all those neat, new toys. There is no shame in making do with older/used equipment if it gets the job done. If it still works, keep it. If it can be fixed, fix it and keep it. Don't try to keep up with all your friends, you aren't in college to do that. Once you have a well paying job you can think about a new car and fancy, shiny electronics.

Stay flexible. The real world is under no obligation to do things the way you plan it to. In fact, most of thew time it will seem like it is out to get you. And it probably is, so keep a savings account for when things go non-linear on you. But dip into this only when you have no other choice. Today's emergency may pale in comparison to tomorrow's.

That sweet young thing you are infatuated with may not be "the one" for the rest of your life. If they are "the one" then getting serious and spending your lives together can wait until after both of you graduate. If it can't wait, then they aren't the right one.

Don't forget the friends you leave behind after High School. Twenty years from now after you have lost contact with them you may find that you miss them most of all. And often, you can never look back and undo the damage you have done after all those years. True friends will stick with you, but only if you stick with them.

Trust what your parents tell you. Contrary to what you may think, they know what they are talking about because they have been in your shoes once. And more than likely they didn't listen themselves and have paid the price. Each generation thinks it is special and different. It's not. Each generation merely plays the same the same song, just the instruments are different.

I wish I had paid heed to these when I was starting out. Unfortunately I didn't listen when family tried to help and I ended up paying the price for it. "You can never go home" is so, so true.

Michael

Michael C. Fortner
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

--G.
I think the young people enjoy it when I get down verbally, don't you?
><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

1)Live in the dorms at least a year. You will never again be exposed to such a variety of people in such close proximity.

2)Group projects happen and they generally suck. The only way to make them not suck is if you take control of the group (if you don't, who will?) and be ruthless about making sure that the other members are pulling their weight.

Okay, 3 things :)

3) Time management. This is the only way to manage stress, pass classes, and enjoy life. Check out the student resource people like someone said.

-- Andrew

Polychrome

GET ENOUGH SLEEP. It has actually been scientifically proven that people who get a full night's sleep beforehand do better on their exams than people who stay up cramming. Also, if you undersleep for months on end you may burn out your ability to function on not quite enough -- this happened to me, I got only five hours' sleep a night all the way through freshman year and since then I'm a zombie all day if I don't get seven or more.

You may discover at some point that all of your friends are assholes. If this happens, go down the hall and make some new friends. You will find it easier to do this while you're still in college than ten years later.

You're going to be assigned far more reading than anyone could possibly do. The professors may not admit it, but they don't really expect you to do all of it; they expect you to learn how to skim for the important bits. Yes, it would probably be better if they taught this explicitly, but it's always been done this way, and there's not enough course hours to go around.

If you're struggling with a course, go talk to the TA or the professor during office hours, as soon as possible. They can help you a lot more if you show up early in the term than if you show up the day before the final.

And finally ... it sounds ridiculous, but the single most valuable class you will ever take is probably freshman composition.

Really. Don't just plow through your studies. Get up and do something every twenty or thirty minutes. Spending a few minutes doing something that is genuinely entertaining in the middle of studying has shown that you will actually retain stuff better. It's what I do and I have freakin' ADD. The trick is to kinda make a deal with yourself - watch x-amount of youtube clips (or whatever) in return for 30 minutes of hard-core study time, and stick with it.

Definite must on the dorm living thing. The closest I ever came to that was living with my roomies in Richmond, VA. There was this cynical bastard there and he would easily have me dying of asphyxiation every time he went off on one of his tirades. In college, people like this are a MUST to have around.

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "Murphy never sleeps, but that's no reason to poke him with a sharp stick."

Sanity breaks are important.

Don't go getting drunk every night. It might be fun (YMMV), but it's not healthy.

Sit in front. Being known to the prof and/or TA as more than a name on a list has saved more than one undergrad.

Don't necessarily hang with the on-campus contingent from back home. How are you going to make new friends if you don't expand your circle?

As has been said many times in many ways, get involved with some kind of group. Great way to meet people, make friends, learn something new/share what you know, relax, de-stress (both always helpful), not to mention possible networking opportunities.

Your friends (old and new) may be asshats from time to time, but you will be too.

If you have Psych classes, being the guinea pig can be fun :) (back in the day at my school, Psych 101 had a requirement to participate in X hours of experiments; you got to pick the experiment(s), with each having a different number of hours assigned to it)

Don't be afraid to ask for advice from good sources. You don't have to take it, but you should consider it. (and your parents aren't nearly as dumb as you might think they are - it'll be amazing how much smarter they've suddenly become about 5 years from now)

Be careful with the credit cards. They'll get you into trouble even faster than loans, and unlike loans they want payment *now*

re: the comment about changing majors, don't let changing bother you one bit, nor ultimately finding a job in your major. I changed majors one time, causing me to take 5 years to get through. I've worked in 6 fields since then, and only 1 had anything to do with either major.

Jeanne

	Jeanne Hedge http://www.jhedge.com
"Believe me, if I have to go the rest of my life without companionship, knowing myself won't be a problem." -- Gabrielle of Potadeia

Ask for help.
- Yes, it seems obvious, but this is actually ignored by 90% of incoming freshman. Which is why the other 10% rule the world. Don't know what's going on? Ask for help. Not sure if the class you're taking is going to sink your GPA? Ask for help. Not sure what to do when you start to fail (and you will fail)? Ask for help.. Sick? Ask for help. Suicidal? Ask for help. Nobody made it to the top of anything without help. You are not an island, you're not invincible, and don't waste your energy trying to do it all. You're a social animal and smart social animals ask for help and admit to people they trust that they're over their heads.

Get a mentor - someone who has successfully graduated in the last 20 years who will have your back.
- at some point you will encounter something you've never done before. Or have decisions to make that might haunt you for the next 20 years. a mentor (or better a pack of mentors) will offer you the type of support that should allow you to do what you want without ending up without a job, estranged from your parents, and dependent on your boyfriend. Mentors will help do the thinking when you can't and they've been there (probably). They'll also help you find a job when you need one.

Nothing you experience is new
- So good old Ecclesiastes has it right: nothing is new under the sun. But it's new to you. So enjoy it, have fun with it, but for the love of god, don't think you're the only person on the planet to have X happen. You're not. And if X is bad, then see my first two suggestions. If X is good, then share it with friends.

Don't trample over your family on your quest to adulthood
- This one is flexible. No matter how dysfunctional my ongoing relationship is with the 'rents, it really started to go down hill in college. They just didn't understand, man. And guess what? They still don't. But for some people college bring you closer to your parents (for example my SO). So if you like your folks, stay in touch. They'll be more likely to bail you out of the first time you max your credit card and help you move if you don't spend three years ignoring them. Plus any younger siblings will then probably not spend the next decade hating your guts.

Text is fleeting, but facebook is forever
- Let me put it this way - when I talk with anyone these days, i check out linkedin on my phone and I do a quick facebook search. If I'm hiring you and your facebook page is nothing but drunken parties and naked people, or worse, bigotry or racism, I probably am not hiring you.
- Also NOTHING dies on the Internet. I keep telling my 15 year old cousin this, but she keeps posting pictures of her self in training bras. Be smart and geeky - good geeks know how to use privacy filters.

Sometimes you're in the wrong place
- Ok, so I lucked out. I went to the right college for my soul (not my gpa, which is another story). But a lot of people don't. You might be one of them. If you need to get out then for the love of little green processors TRANSFER before your bollix it up.

Use the mental health and personal health services at college
- don't know about your school, but I can say that the morning after pill and the mental health people were huge helps. Don't worry about being embarrassed (see the bit about "all this has happened before, and all this will happen again, but this time it will happen to...")
- and for the love of god, don't be stupid like me and play games of chance with sex. I am damn lucky that nothing happened to me. But the stats suggest that I'm an exception. You may not be. Roulette with your reproductive and immune systems are not worth it. Protection is cheap and so are good acute care services in most university health clinics.

Do scavenger hunt
- there are opportunity that will never come again. I have never regretted skipping japanese to go on a cross country scav hunt in a car that started by crossing wires. (I regretted japanese but that;'s another story). My SO was nearly killed on the Mexican border when a world famous paleontologist got his students lost in the desert in June. Perhaps I exaggerate slightly, but that's the point. a good experience is worth a thousand all night cram sessions.

The unexamined life sucks
- once upon a time, colleges were open to rich people who didn't need income from the sweat of their brows. These guys (and they were mostly guys) spent their time carousing and reading. That tradition exists in most american colleges, but some where along the way the idea of that you're supposed to think big thoughts about Life, the Universe, and Everything died out. Maybe you're at an institution that still values the concept of arete (personal excellence) and the quest for truth that is the soul of every true academic endeavor. Maybe you're not. In any case, this is your best time ever to challenge what you believe and what others believe. An examined life is amazing, and college gives you the freedom to explore that.

In order to succeed, you will first fail
- ok, this is the last bit, and nearly as important as asking for help. You are going to fail. Fail big. Embrace that now, because what determines your success is your ability to learn from failure and come up newer and different failures. At some point, this will be come second nature (scientists call them "experiments), and you will be able to overcome failure and think on your feet in a way that makes you happier.
- but if you spend your whole time in college fearing failure and playing it safe, you're not going to learn a damn thing. And the real world will crush you like a bug.

have a blast and keep us all posted on how it goes!
t.

Trigger Argee
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - HST

Don't be surprised if you're in college for more than four years for any number of reasons. Switching majors, remedial catchup classes, or higher level classes that are only offered one semester a year and are either full or you were not eligible for it. Its not the end of the world.

INTERSHIPS! Once you have your chosen profession/degree field pretty much cemented (junior year or so) get a co-op or internship. The market isn't going to improve by much in the next four or five years and anything that can go on your resume or give you applicable experience in the field is a leg up on your competition. Plus (and this is a necessary evil of getting a job in general) co-ops and internships can give you name recognition within the company and could lead to full time employment because they already know you and your work ethic.

------------
~If you want my input the red explosions are really pretty and if you did enough you might live for a few more excrutiating seconds

My not so humble contribution to cyberspace

>Take at least one class a semester that you don't have to, that just sounds >cool.

I'm going to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus. For those of you that don't know, it's a... I gues you could call it a liberal arts college, but I'm in the sub-college of Science and Engineering. As a liberal arts college, I need to take about 70 elective credits. Come fall semester, I'll be taking a class that sounds like fan fiction 101, just to improve my writing.

>Set an alarm, and stick to it.

I used to be a morning person and get up super early for a class I took in high school. This fall I will need to get back into going to sleep early, and getting up with at least two hours before class.

>Wait until you are finished with college before buying all those neat, new toys. There is no shame in making do with older/used >equipment if it gets the job done. If it still works, keep it. If it can be fixed, fix it and keep it.

I have plenty of old stuff for everything, and don't mind it. Second hand stuff is fine by me.

>Live in the dorms at least a year. You will never again be exposed to such a variety of people in such close proximity.

I want to live in the dorms all four years, hopefully as a R.A. or something like it.

>Don't be afraid to ask for advice from good sources. You don't have to take it, but you should consider it.

Why do you think I asked here?

Thanks for all the advice! I'll keep you guys (and gals) posted if I can think of anything worth while to say.

-SilenRevered

1. Try to attend class regularly and do the required assignments and studying.
2. If you're having trouble, talk to the professor or TA.
3. If you're not succeeding in a course, either because you screwed up or because you just can't understand it even with help, be sure to drop or withdraw from the course before its too late and impacts your GPA in a negative way.
4. If at first, you don't succeed, try again. But remember what Einstein said about trying the same exact thing and expecting different results.
5. Remember the basics: sleeping, eating, and personal hygiene.
6. And don't forget to take some time out to have some fun along the way!

I like these books because they're short, well-organized and well-written, and written from the viewpoint that strategies for time-management and organization have to be easy and practical.

He also writes the blog Study Hacks: http://calnewport.com/blog/about/