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If you're living in the dorms, Fbreeze does all kinds of wonderful things.  From making your 20 year old curtains not smell to "cleaning" that shirt enough that you don't have to do laundry.

Find a system of taking notes that works for you.  A lot of people like spiral notebooks, but I find my notes come out better if I use a blank sheet of computer paper, especially for engineering classes.  Also, if you used colored paper for homework sets, it makes them easier to dig out of the pile of 300 in that general physics class.

Have fun on the weekends but make sure to budget your time appropriately because you will work harder than in high school, more than likely.  But you can still have free time if you work at it.

Oh, and if nobody's told you yet, Thursday is a drinking night.

You never know when you need to write something down, inside or outside of class.  Keep a pen on your person.  And the smaller the pen the better.

Fisher Space Pen ("Bullet" Model)

I'd disagree about being laid back.  There are lots of things it's very, very important to study for.  Having an attitude of "It'll all work out in the end" without actually working toward that, is a good way to fail out in lots of places.

Two words for freshman college students:  Community College (or Junior College depending on where you are)

You'll save a ton of money.  You'll get to drive home every night and most CCs have a transfer option of some sort so that you can easily get into a 4 year program.

Or course this may not be an option for you but it works for some.

Community College is a great way to save you money, but most are nowhere near the difficulty of a 4 year institution.  Lots of people go that route in engineering, maybe 5% actually graduate.

And who wants to live at home?  You have to grow up sometime.

sosumi wrote:

Community College is a great way to save you money, but most are nowhere near the difficulty of a 4 year institution.  Lots of people go that route in engineering, maybe 5% actually graduate.

And who wants to live at home?  You have to grow up sometime.

Yeah, you definately have to work.  But it's another route to get to a school you really want to attend, if you can't get there as a freshman.  Other than that, I only recommend it if you need the money.  Because it'll kill your gpa (at least in CA) and like sumi said, who wants to live at home (tho in reality, I didn't mind living at home that extra year; I'm way young compared to most of my class, though).

Tria wrote:

Oh yeah, and if you can possibly avoid it, never, ever schedule more than 2 1.5 hour lectures back to back.  It's just too long to be sitting in class taking notes.

Wuss. Then again, geeky science stuff is probably a bit harder to digest that history or german.

Go to class.  Even if you don't feel like it.

agedgruel wrote:

Go to class.  Even if you don't feel like it.

I agree.  As I have posted before, GO TO CLASS!!!  I wasted 2.5 years of college before I understood this.  You learn a lot when you teach yourself (i.e. learn from the books only).  You learn a lot more with less pain when you GO TO CLASS. 

Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot about adapting my brain to new ideas (read academic) when I taught myself, but nothing beats GOING TO CLASS for better grades and less "all nighters".  I do believe that teaching myself through books and "class notes" (a company that relies on the fact that you do not GO TO CLASS, and makes class notes available for a fee at Ohio State) made me a better scholar, but it was much better when I WENT TO CLASS.  When you go to class, you learn what it is that the prof wants to hear as well as how to display how you WENT TO CLASS.  Much better grades and understanding with less work happened when I WENT TO CLASS.  See a trend here?  GO TO CLASS!!

Tria wrote:

sosumi wrote:

Community College is a great way to save you money, but most are nowhere near the difficulty of a 4 year institution.  Lots of people go that route in engineering, maybe 5% actually graduate.

And who wants to live at home?  You have to grow up sometime.

Yeah, you definately have to work.  But it's another route to get to a school you really want to attend, if you can't get there as a freshman.  Other than that, I only recommend it if you need the money.  Because it'll kill your gpa (at least in CA) and like sumi said, who wants to live at home (tho in reality, I didn't mind living at home that extra year; I'm way young compared to most of my class, though).

Apparently I'm young for where I'm at in my area of study too.  I'm 21, at school I was surrounded by 23-26 year olds, including sophomores from SDSU.  Most younger people I meet in a similar entry job like mine are 25 or older and still in school too.
Saving money and making money are my primary reasons for going to a CC.  Going to school full time and working 30+ hours a week is possible, just don't expect much of a social life.  The one thing you never ever want to do at a CC is take only 12 units a semester. Get out as fast as possible, nothing is worth being stuck there for 3 years like me... Though I did decide to finish the associates degree too, rather than focus just on transferring.
I didn't mind living at home the first year either, but it goes down hill quickly after that...

Oh, and don't be afraid to talk to your professors. They are paid to help you. Make an appointment with them or show up at office hours if you don't have enough time to give them notice.

sevenofeleven wrote:

Tria wrote:

7 - that was one of the things that always bugged me about JC.  "Hi, my name is Kate, I've been here 8 years, and I still haven't passed remedial math." 

Yeah, but is she hot?

No, she's 5' 2" and 200 lbs.

I saw roughly 3 attractive girls at my jc.