The First Year

Part of the "Surviving College" series

For most students, the transition from high school to college is just about as rough as the transition from elementary to middle school. Suddenly, you're put on this huge campus with tons of other students, all pursuing different majors. Suddenly, you're responsible for motivating yourself to study, for getting yourself to class and getting food, and sometimes for getting your own money.

But fear not, intrepid student explorer. Here is the testimony from one such college student, who survived four years in a dorm setting and lived four years on campus food, who managed to keep herself on the Dean's and Chancellor's Lists every semester, and who managed to also keep her sanity.

Tip #1: Don't think that college is all about partying.

You may have watched "Animal House," "Tommy Boy," or other movies that are set in college campuses; you may also have talked to a lot of current college students before even thinking about it for yourself. From these and many other sources in popular culture, people can get the idea that college students party, get high, and drink all the time and still manage to graduate.

This is not true.

The truth is: if you party every day, get high every night, and drink all weekend, you will not finish any of your course work, get put on academic probation, and subsequently get thrown out of your dorm. Some dorms have a zero-tolerance policy about alcohol, and most colleges don't take kindly to drug use. This kind of behavior can be very dangerous to your academic standings, and more importantly, your personal health.

But college need not be a time of endless work cloistered away in your dorm, either. The real key to having fun at college is time management. You can have time to party on the weekends, after you've finished a sufficient amount of work so that you won't be swamped on Sunday night. Work ahead if you can during the week so that your Friday night is full of fun with friends, not hurried work.

And when you party, of course, try not to use any illegal substances--not only will it get you in trouble with the police, but it will change your brain chemistry permanently, and sometimes will even cause severe injury and death. You need that brain for classes and life after college--don't waste it on drugs.

Tip #2: Don't wait to start big assignments the night before they are due.

Take it from the Queen of All Procrastinators herself: Leaving major work to the last minute only results in major headaches, major loss of sleep, and major grumpiness the next day. (I've spent some nights at the computer straining to produce an essay due the next morning at 11:00). It is NOT good for your health, whether physical, mental, or emotional.

To remedy this, set aside 15 minutes each day to work on a major project coming up. Just 15 minutes, in between Internet and TV, in between your other classes. Sketch out a tentative plan, think about what you need to do first---just DO something, other than sit and fret about how much work you have. Believe me, the fretting takes up much more time than the actual work will.

Be sure to set yourself a small, specific task for these 15-minute sessions. Don't just write out a to-do list saying "Work on biology report" or "Research English essay"--these are unfocused and vague goals that will daunt your progress and not make you want to work. Instead, set a goal like "Find one source of literary criticism from a peer-reviewed journal for the English essay" or "Finish the hypothesis and purpose statements for the biology report." These are small things you can do in 15 minutes, and they are so specific that they look easy to do.

More study tips (and ways to combat procrastination!) can be found here.

Tip #3: Whether you're an on-campus or off-campus student, do try to eat at the college dining facilities sometimes--if nothing else, it saves a trip off-campus.

Eating at college cafeterias can be an adventure in amazingly awful cuisine (for instance, my college's "Caf" is alive with the mixed smells of Dawn dishwashing detergent and raw meat cooking), but if your college is worth its salt, it will most likely have a few fast-food chains on campus as well. Getting food without having to catch a taxi or waste gas is definitely a plus if you live on campus, and if you're a commuter student, having food facilities a few steps away between classes can be a godsend.

Tip #4: Motivate yourself.

Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean purchasing motivational-speaker tapes and listening to them in your car. Now that you're a college student (and away from your parents), it can be really tempting to blow off classwork, go to bed at horrible hours (like 5:00 am when you have an 8:00 am class), and skip classes regularly, especially if the professors don't take attendance. However, this is not such a great idea.

Why? Because you are building your future at this college. You and your parents are PAYING MONEY to get a degree so you can get a job and do something you love. Why not bust your buns and do well at college? Get good grades! Make friends with professors! Do your work on time! These are all things that employers look for when hiring. If you show that you respect authority, get your work done in a timely manner, and most of all do your work to the best of your ability, then you have the advantage when it's time to search for a job in your chosen career.

So, how to start motivating yourself? First of all, get good rest. Anyone is going to feel awful all day if they're only running on 2 hours' sleep. Take a raincheck on clubbing, hanging out in friends' rooms, or even working ahead on assignments into the wee hours, and get yourself at least a 7-hour block of sleep a night (say, from 12:00 am to 7:00 am, or 1:00 am to 8:00 am). You're still staying up a little later, but you're also getting some better rest.

Getting your homework and major assignments done is also a big point. Try not to procrastinate---do assignments in itty-bitty sections. If you feel like you're at the end of your wits on a big assignment, get away from it and take a 1-hour nap--this will likely boost your ability to come at the assignment with a fresh perspective.

Always going to class is the third big idea. If you are in class every time, you will not only understand more of what the class is teaching, but you will show your professors that you respect them and care about what they are instructing. This will also help you if you fall ill and need some time off to recover---a professor will be more likely to cut you some slack if you are otherwise a good student who does his or her work on time and comes to class regularly.

Tip #5: Be organized.

No, I'm not going to tell you to go out and buy a daily planner--but if a planner works for you, then use one. Fact is, everyone has a different style of organization that works for them. Mine seems to be anti-organized from anybody else's perspective, but I know exactly where to find my schoolwork when I need it. Best of all, my system is tailored to my own personal quirks, making it that much easier to locate things and keep them orderly.

Some people like separate notebooks for each class; some people like one notebook for everything. Some people like to study at their desks; some people like to study lying on their tummies on the bed (hehe, that's me). Any of this is perfectly acceptable, if it works for you. The best thing to do in college is to find your organizational style and stick with it---put things where you know YOU will find them, in categories that make sense to YOU.

In my case, I used to prefer separate notebooks for each class, just because it was a lot easier to separate out all the papers I get from each class. Being an English major, one can get easily swamped with lots of paper from printed assignments, essays, and such. I also liked to put each notebook with the textbook it went with on my desk--that way, when I was hurrying out the door, I knew where all of my class materials were, and could get them and pack them into my bag quickly.

Nowadays, I use a large zip-up three-ring binder with three folders in it--one for each of my graduate classes. This system works better for me now that I live off-campus and need to keep a lot of my class files with me when I do manage to get on-campus to use the library and attend class.

Organization can also be for your computer files as well! For instance, every semester I make a file folder for each of my classes, and those are arranged in my main "Schoolwork" folder on my hard drive. Then I know where to put my downloaded files and written essays for each class, and more importantly, where to find them.

Tip #6: Make studying effective.

This kind of dovetails with Tip #5, because every person has a different study style according to how each person learns. For instance, I am an auditory and kinesthetic learner--that means I learn by hearing a teacher talk and doing hands-on activities. I also have a fairly photographic memory, however, which enables me to use a bit of visual learning as well.

If you're a visual learner, you probably...

• Learn better from Powerpoints and pictures/illustrations in lecture classes
• Do better in math, science, and art
• Benefit from using flashcards and/or pictures to study and memorize things

If you're an auditory learner, you probably...

• Learn better from lectures, open discussion sessions and question/answer class settings
• Do better in English, foreign language, history, and music
• Benefit from audiotaping class lectures for studying and/or making up tests with a friend and verbally quizzing each other

If you're a kinesthetic learner, you probably...

• Learn better from class activities and group work
• Do better in sports, dance, social sciences, and psychology
• Benefit from group study, rewriting your notes before tests, and associating motion with concepts

Determining what kind of study is best for you will be a giant step towards doing better in college. Talk to other people about what tips work for them, and then try to incorporate them into your own study plans. If those tips don't work as well, try other ways of remembering and recalling information. Relating strange and difficult concepts to subjects that I already know is one study tip that works for me---try it with your study session and see what connections with other subjects you can build.

For instance, I related the graphs of functions in College Algebra to the major plotlines of four of Shakespeare's plays. If the graph started way up high and ended down low, I remembered the plot of Romeo and Juliet (starts happily, ends in tragedy). If the graph both started low and ended low, I remembered the plot of Hamlet (starts with King Hamlet's death, ends with everybody else's death). Using these subject analogies, relating a subject I hated with a subject I liked and understood, was a major player in me doing better on math tests.

The type of test you are about to take also determines how you should study. If you have a multiple-choice test coming up, it will probably be important to look at definitions, vocabulary, and main concepts of the subject you are studying. If you're about to have an essay exam, you may want to focus on a few concepts which your teacher has discussed during class--very often, the teachers who give essay exams will focus their essay questions around things that were discussed in class sessions.