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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is from the school of hard knocks that I went through as a cocky freshman who had been the big fish in the small pond of my tiny high school and crashed and burned my first semester at a large, private elite university.

Don't take the 8 am section! Not unless you're an early bird.

Go to each and every class, no matter what the weather, no matter what else you have going on. Your instructors don't care if you show up, but don't take that freedom to cut if you want and run with it as you're only hurting yourself.

One mental math trick you can do is take your total costs per semester (tuition, room and board, incidentals) and calculate the costs per class. Then visualize burning that money each and every time you cut class, because that's what you're doing.

Take advantage of office hours for both your TAs and your professors. If you have questions -- ask them early and often. Only form study groups with people who are as serious as you are.

Make sure you have a balanced courseload -- don't underestimate how much homework each one will have.

If you have AP credits, think very hard about whether you should use them to place out of classes. For me, it was a total mistake to use my 3 on my Calc AB exam to place out of first semester calculus. Nobody told me what a huge mistake that was, and I was a clueless idiot. I should have never taken calculus at all or at least started over with first-semester. (And it was my 8 am class out of five classes.....so many, many mistakes I made!!)

Start right away on building good study habits in college. You have to keep up with your homework each and every night. Find the place to study that works for you -- for me, it was in library stacks away from other people and surrounded by dry, dusty, boring books that posed absolutely no distractions.

Don't get carried away with extracurriculars, either sports or other activities. At this point you're not trying to get into college again and grad schools/employers are not really going to care about your extracurriculars. These can become a tremendous time suck if you're not careful.[/quote]

+1000 And don't let your friends dictate your study habits.  Read materials before class, so you can better participate and learn faster.[/quote]

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